To perform recording so as to be able to distinguish among the white part of the edge of an image (part within a recording range), the white part of the blank around the image (unrecorded part), a white part in the image (part within the recording range) and a non-image part included in the image (unrecorded part).

This image recording apparatus has a receiving means for receiving color-decomposed image data, and an image data storing means for storing the received image data, and a control means. In this case, the control means performs control in such a way that the image data storing means is separated into regions larger than the size of predetermined image data and predetermined paint-out data are stored in the separated regions, the image data are stored by overwriting in the image data storing means so that blanks of the paint-out data may remain around the image data received by the receiving means, and the image data and the paint-out data which are stored in the image data storing means are read to record the data on a photosensitive material on the basis of the image data and the paint-out data.