Patent ID: 8873869
Filing Date: 2014-10-28
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image processing apparatus comprising: a region extraction unit for extracting at least one object region from image data that has been input; an analyzing unit for analyzing average color information of pixels in each at least one object region extracted by said region extraction unit and analyzing average color information of pixels in a peripheral region being in the periphery of the object region; a calculation unit for calculating a difference between the average color information of pixels in an object region of interest and that of pixels in a peripheral region of the object region of interest; an important region selection unit for selecting the object region of interest as an important region where degradation in image quality is to be reduced, if the difference is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold; and an encoding unit for compressing and encoding, among portions of the input image data, an image data portion outside of the important region with use of a first quantization step value, and for further compressing and encoding an image data portion of the important region with use of a second quantization step value that is smaller than the first quantization step value.