Electrostatic image forming method

Abstract

An electrostatic image forming method for various kinds of image forming apparatuses. At an exposing step, a light image having a light quantity region greater than a predetermined quantity of light is projected to form on a dielectric layer of a dielectric recording medium a positive electrostatic image which has such a tendency that the surface potential or the amount of surface charge is comparatively small in a region in which the quantity of light is comparatively large. A full-surface exposing step using a predetermined quantity of exposing light is added to before or after the exposure to the light image, so that the total quantity of exposing light exceeds a predetermined quantity of light. The quantity of light of the light image is controllable to a larger one which provides a positive electrostatic image on the dielectric layer, or to a smaller one which provides a negative latent image. After an image has been formed, a predetermined period of time for adaptation is provided to ensure a potential contrast so that a positive electrostatic latent image may be formed under advantageous image forming conditions.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.