To obtain the high reproducibility of a fine line and to enable a high- quality image to be formed without causing the irregularity of gloss between image parts and at the image part by constituting toner of colored grains including at least binding resin and colorant, specifying the range of the volume average grain size of the colored grains and specifying the number % of colored grains whose volume average grain size is beyond the range.

A toner image is formed by developing an electrostatic latent image by the toner including the colored grains consisting of the binding resin and the colorant. In the fixing process of this toner image, the weight of the toner in an image area where the image area percentage of a transfer image is 100% is ≤0.40 mg/cm2 and the transfer image is fixed by using a contact type fixing device. Besides, the toner constituted so that the volume average grain size of the colored grains is 2.0 to 5.0 μm, the colored grains whose volume grain size is ≤1.0 μm is ≤20 number %, the colored grains whose volume grain size is 1.0 μm to 2.5 μm is 5 to 50 number % and the colored grains whose volume grain size is ≥5.0 μm is ≤10 number % is used.