An image processing apparatus for recording a read image upon a recording medium. If a reading width of an image reading sensor is wider than a recording width of a recording head, the apparatus controls scanning of the image sensor and the recording head. The recording head comprises uniformly aligned recording elements divided into a plurality of groups. Image data read by the image sensor is stored into a memory, then used for activating the recording elements of the recording head. The apparatus conveys a recording medium by a length corresponding to one recording element group at each scanning of the recording head. If the amount of meaningless data or recorded data of the stored data corresponds to the amount of one scanning of the recording head or more, the image sensor performs the next reading.