Patent US 7,876,342

In an image forming apparatus for forming a color image by superposing component color images, a control device obtains position data representing a forming position of each of plural registration mark images for the component color images with respect to a positional reference value arbitrarily determined, divides the position data into each of a unit reference range representing a range in which one mark image is formed, converts the position data divided for each unit reference range into those based on respective reference values representing the front edge of the unit reference ranges, extracts the position data representing ranges common to the mutually overlapping ranges each of which is represented by a couple of position data corresponding to the rising and falling edges of a passage timing pulse as read position data of the mark image of the component color, and calculates the amounts of positional deviations of the component color images from one another on the basis of the position data extracted.