An image forming apparatus according to embodiments of the invention includes: a reading unit that reads an image to generate original image data; an image-quality control unit that controls the image quality of the generated original image data; a file generating unit that generates an electronic file containing intermediate image data in an appropriate intermediate stage of the image-quality control and attribute information containing image-quality parameters for the image-quality control; an interface that exchanges the generated electronic file with an external device; and a recording unit that prints the image on the basis of the intermediate image data and the attribute information input from the external device via the interface.