An image forming apparatus includes an embed-information processing control unit configured to control, based on a first software component, embed-information processing for extracting embedded information or for embedding information with respect to image data output from a second software component, and an embed-information processing service unit configured to perform the embed-information processing with respect to the image data in response to an instruction from the embed-information processing control unit, wherein the embed-information processing service unit includes a shared service unit configured to perform a process shared by different types of the embed-information processing, and one or more specific service units each configured to perform a different process specific to a different type of the embed-information processing, and wherein the shared service unit receives an instruction from the embed-information processing control unit, and the specific service units perform the embed-information processing with respect to the image data.