To provide an image forming method which can form a uniform image without damage in a support body caused by heat which is a defect of a thermal transfer system, can form an image excellent in hue reproducibility, can obtain a transfer image having excellent transfer property for fine points and high resolution, and an image forming device which can efficiently form uniform images to be used for the method.

The image forming method uses an image receiving sheet having an image transfer material with a transfer recording layer consisting of a thermal transfer material on a support body and a binder resin-containing image receiving layer. A latent image forming process is provided for forming a latent image by giving a transferability promoting material capable of lowering transfer temperature of the thermal transfer material image-wise to either the transfer recording layer surface of the image transfer material or the image receiving face of the image receiving sheet. In a transferring process, the transfer recording layer surface of the image transfer material and the image receiving face of the image receiving sheet are adhered and heated, and the transfer recording layer corresponding to the latent image is transferred on the image receiving sheet.