Image forming method utilizing toner having inorganic particles and particles of a specific sphericity

An image forming method, comprising:

• a charging step of charging an electrostatic latent image-bearing member by charging means,
• an exposure step of exposing the charged image-bearing member to form an electrostatic latent image thereon,
• a developing step of developing the electrostatic latent image with a non-magnetic toner held by developing means to form a toner image on the image-bearing member, and
• a transfer step of transferring the toner image on the image-bearing member onto a transfer material via or without via an intermediate transfer member, wherein
• (I) a portion of the toner remaining on the image-bearing member after the transfer step is recovered by the developing means during a subsequent developing step;
• (II) the non-magnetic toner comprises non-magnetic toner particles having a shape factor SF-1 of 120-160, a shape factor SF-2 of 115-140 and a weight-average particle size of 4-9 .mu.m;
• and
• (III) the non-magnetic toner further includes inorganic fine particles (a) having a number-average primary particle size of at most 50 nm and spherical fine particles (b) having a number-average primary particle size of 50-1000 nm and a surface area-based sphericity .psi. of 0.91-1.00, respectively externally added to the non-magnetic toner particles.