An image recording system is provided with an image data producing apparatus to produce and output halftone dot image data corresponding to a single sheet of output image, for each of plural colors successively; an image recording apparatus having a drum, a rotation driving mechanism, an optical unit to expose the light sensitive material on the drum to plural color light simultaneously in accordance with the halftone dot image data of plural (N≧3) colors, and a sub-scanning mechanism to move the optical unit in a direction parallel to a rotation axis of the drum; and an image data storing apparatus to store the halftone dot image data and to output the halftone dot image data to the image recording apparatus, the image data storing apparatus comprising plural memory devices each storing the halftone dot image data corresponding to a single sheet of the output image for one of plural (N or N−1) colors.