An image forming apparatus wherein a laser beam produced by a laser source is imaged through an imaging optical system on an image bearing member as a beam spot. The beam spot scans the image bearing member in a main scan direction. The laser source is rendered on and off to form an image with picture elements. The laser driving pulse width per picture element is changed in accordance with the image density of the image to be formed, so that the tone gradation of the image is provided on the image bearing member in accordance with the pulse width. The size of the spot measured in the main scan direction (1/e2 diameter) is not more than 0.7 times of the size of the picture element measured in the main scan direction.
