An image forming apparatus having an image carrying member bearing an electrostatic image wherein the electrostatic image is visualized into a toner image by a developing device. The image carrying member is arranged for transferring the toner image to an intermediate transfer element while the image carrying member and intermediate transfer element are moving at a usual speed corresponding to the speed of movement of the image carrying member during toner image development. Multiple such toner images of different colors may be transferred in this manner to form multi-color images superimposed on the intermediate transfer element for subsequent transfer to a recording medium, usually paper. To increase the speed at which multi-color copies can be made, the speed of movement of the image carrying member and intermediate transfer element may be temporarily increased (a) immediately following visualization of each toner image on the image carrying member, (b) when the developing device separates from the image carrying member, and (c) after transfer of the visual image from the image carrying member to the intermediate transfer element, respectively. The speed of movement of the image carrying member and intermediate transfer element is returned to the usual speed (d) before image information is written on the image carrying member, and (e) before transfer of the multi-color image from the intermediate transfer element to the recording medium, respectively.