System for reducing a surface potential of an image bearing member in an image forming apparatus

An image forming apparatus, comprising:

• an image bearing member;
• latent image forming means for forming a latent image having a high potential portion and a low potential portion on said image bearing member;
• toner image forming means for forming a toner image on the image bearing member in accordance with the formed latent image;
• transfer material bearing member for bearing and conveying a transfer material to a transfer station where the toner image on said image bearing member is transferred onto the transfer material;
• and
• potential applying means for applying a predetermined potential which is lower than the potential of said high potential portion to a predetermined area of said image bearing member;
• wherein when a portion of said transfer material bearing member not bearing the transfer material is in the transfer station before the transferring of the toner image is started, at least a portion of said predetermined area is in said transfer station.