To provide an image recording apparatus and an image recording method by which the latent image property of a silver salt photosensitive material is canceled to realize a high-quality hard copy of stable developed colors, accordingly the effects of image recording on productivity can be minimized.

The image recording method comprises subjecting a silver salt photosensitive material to exposure of an image consisting of numerous pixels with a light source of a predetermined wavelength, and developing the silver salt photosensitive material in which an image has been recorded by the exposure, wherein whether pixels of a predetermined color are included or not in pixels recorded in the silver salt photosensitive material is determined, the number (b) of pixels of the predetermined color in pixels at the time of recording in the silver salt photosensitive material is counted, the number (a) of pixels constituting the whole image is counted, and when the ratio b/a between the number (b) of pixels of the predetermined color and the number (a) of pixels constituting the whole image is a predetermined value or above, the time from the end of the exposure to the development is controlled to perform latent image stabilization.