An optical recording apparatus includes a light source, a scanner, and a phase shift controller. The light source emits a light beam controlled to be lit on and off in synchronism with a pixel clock signal according to input image data. The scanner reforms the light beam emitted by the light source into a cyclic scanning light beam scanning in a main scanning direction a photosensitive surface moving in a sub-scanning direction. The phase shift controller performs an image magnification correction by a phase change for changing a phase of the pixel clock signal in units of one nth of a cycle of the pixel clock signal at one or more positions on the photoconductive surface in the main scanning direction, in which n is an integer greater than one. A method and apparatus of optical image forming is also described.