To provide an image forming method by which the color tone and texture of a white part dependent on quality of paper are made similar to those of printing paper when an image is formed with a dot area image forming apparatus which forms variable-density pixels and reproduces dots by collection of the pixels.

In the image forming method in which a silver halide color photosensitive material is exposed and developed with a dot area image forming apparatus to form an image comprising Y, M, C, and K dot images and a white image, the silver halide color photosensitive material contains a dye forming coupler represented by formula (a), the white image is an image in which pixels of different densities are arranged according to an arrangement pattern different from the yellow, magenta, cyan, and black dot images, the difference between the maximum and minimum of pixel density of the white image is at least 0.1 to <1.0, and the arrangement of pixels of the white-ground image is formed by an FM screening method.