Patent ID: 8107142

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising: a document reading unit which reads image data of a document; an image distinctive data generating unit which generates image distinctive data of the image data read by the document reading unit; an image data receiving unit which receives image data input from an external device; an image data storing unit which stores the image data read by the document reading unit, the image distinctive data generated by the image distinctive data generating unit, and the image data received from the external device; an image data synthesizing unit which synthesizes first image data and second image data stored in the image data storing unit, and synthesizes first image distinctive data from the first image data and second image distinctive data from the second image data; and an image data processing unit which applies a specific process amongst a plurality of predetermined processes to the synthesized image data of the first image data and the second image data, wherein the specific process applied to the synthesized image data is determined based on synthesized image distinctive data from synthesis of (i) the first image distinctive data and (ii) the second image distinctive data.