US Patent 7942516 Image forming method and image forming apparatus

Provided are an image forming method and image forming apparatus capable of always stably transferring an ink image on an intermediate transfer body to a printing medium and stably obtaining an image with high quality. Formation and drying operation of the image using an inkjet method are repeated a plurality of times to obtain the image on the intermediate transfer body and the thus obtained image is transferred from the intermediate transfer body to a printing medium to form the image. At this time, a capability of the drying operation finally performed among a plurality of times of the drying operations is more lowered than those of all the drying operations except the drying operation finally performed.