Image forming apparatus and method

A method for controlling an image forming apparatus including:

• an image forming device configured to receive image data and irradiate a laser beam based on the image data to form a toner image;
• a heater configured to heat a sheet, the heater including a plurality of heater elements arranged in a first direction perpendicular to a second direction in which the sheet is conveyed to fix the toner image onto the sheet;
• and
• a controller configured to selectively control the heater elements to be energized at an energization timing based on the image data, the method comprising:
• counting a number of exposure pixels in each of a plurality of sub-image regions based on the image data, the sub-image regions corresponding to divisions of an image region in the first direction and a second direction;
• and
• selecting a heater element to be energized at an energization timing based on the counted number of exposure pixels in each of the sub-image regions.

An image forming apparatus, comprising:

• an image forming device configured to receive image data and transfer a toner image to a sheet, the toner image corresponding to the image data and being formed from an electrostatic latent image formed on a photoconductive drum by selectively exposing the photoconductive drum in a first direction while the photoconductive drum rotates in a second direction which is perpendicular to the first direction;
• a fixing device configured to receive the sheet from the image forming device and heat the sheet with the toner image thereon, the fixing device including a plurality of heater elements arranged along a direction corresponding to the first direction;
• and
• an engine controller configured to control the fixing device so as to selectively control the heater elements to be energized at an energization timing based on the image data, the energization timing corresponding to the time for the sheet to be transported from the image forming device to the fixing device.