Image forming apparatus having non-image portion exposure amount that is lower in mono mode than in color mode

An image forming apparatus forming an image on a recording material, the apparatus comprising:

• at least one image carrier;
• a charging device configured to charge the surface of the image carrier;
• an exposure device configured to expose the surface of the image carrier;
• and
• a plurality of developing members configured to form a toner image on the surface of the image carrier by supplying a toner to a latent image formed on the surface of the image carrier,
• wherein the image forming apparatus can switch between a color mode, in which an image is formed by sequentially transferring respective color toner images formed by the plurality of developing members to the recording material or an intermediate transfer member from the surface of the image carrier in an overlapping manner, and a mono mode, in which an image is formed with a monochromatic toner by using one developing member of the plurality of developing members,
• the developing member used in the mono mode is a developing member for developing the toner image to be secondly or thereafter transferred to the recording material or the intermediate transfer member in the color mode,
• the exposure device can expose a non-image portion where the toner image is not formed on the surface of the image carrier, at an exposure amount smaller than an exposure amount for an image portion where the toner image is formed, and
• when the developing member used in the mono mode forms the toner image on the surface of the image carrier, the exposure amount at which the exposure device exposes the non-image portion of the image carrier in the case the image is formed in the mono mode, is smaller than that in the case the image is formed in the color mode.