Patent ID: 8314972

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a quadrangular or polygonal area setting section that sets a quadrangular or polygonal area that surrounds a group of pixels that has predetermined characteristics for image data; a background setting section that measures frequency distribution of tone values outside the quadrangular or polygonal area, measures a brightest tone value B in a margin range, which is a range of tone values in which the image data is distributed significantly, measures a most frequent value M in the margin range, and sets a background range, which is a range that includes the most frequent value M as a median point and further includes the brightest tone value B as one end of the range; a black edge statistics section that measures frequency distribution of tone values of black edge inside the quadrangular or polygonal area and measures a greatest brightness value b in a black edge range, which is a range of tone values in which the black edge is distributed significantly; a judging section that judges, among all groups of pixels included in the image data, some groups of pixels that have tone values that fall within a target range as target components, the target range being a range that is included in the margin range and is brighter than the greatest brightness value b; and one or more processors configured with a correcting section that corrects the target components.