Patent ID: 8861888

Claim:
An image processing device which reduces an unnecessary light component in an image captured through an optical system including a diffractive optical element, said image processing device comprising: a flare image estimation unit configured to produce an estimated flare image that appears around a bright object in the captured image; and an unnecessary light subtraction unit configured to subtract the estimated flare image from the captured image, wherein said flare image estimation unit includes: a luminance saturation position detection unit configured to detect a luminance saturation position to produce a light source image, the luminance saturation position being an image position in the captured image at which a luminance value is greater than a predetermined value; a flare model production unit configured to produce a flare model image based on the light source image and optical characteristics data of the optical system; a flare position setting unit configured to set, as a flare position, a predetermined image position, which is an image position in the captured image and located near the luminance saturation position and on a side of an optical axis relative to the luminance saturation position; and a flare model luminance adjustment unit configured to produce the estimated flare image by adjusting a gain of a luminance of the flare model image, based on a relationship between a luminance value of the captured image at the flare position and a luminance value of the flare model image at the flare position.