Patent ID: 7720279

Claim:
An image processing method that specifies flesh area on an image, the image processing method comprising: acquiring image data that is data of the target image; dividing the image data into a plurality of image data areas; analyzing the image data in image data area units and for each image data area acquiring color area properties exhibited by the image data area; analyzing the image data in image data area units and for each image data area acquiring texture properties exhibited by the image data area, wherein the texture properties include a dispersion value as a parameter; specifying image data areas corresponding to flesh areas among the image data areas using the acquired color area properties and texture properties, the specifying of image data areas including forming photographed subject areas by associating adjacent image data areas exhibiting the same color area properties and texture properties, specifying image data areas corresponding to flesh areas by specifying photographed subject areas that exhibit flesh tone color area properties and smooth texture properties, the image data areas being composed of a plurality of pixel data, determining the color area properties of the image data areas are flesh toned when the proportion of the number of pixel data exhibiting flesh tone color areas relative to the total number of pixel data in the image data areas is at or over a color area reference value, and determining the texture properties of the image data areas are smooth when the dispersion value in the image data areas is lower than a dispersion reference value; calculating an edge level of a target pixel of the image data; calculating an edge angle of the target pixel; and smoothing the image data using a median filter corresponding to the calculated edge angle when the edge level is equal to or exceeds a predetermined value, and when the edge level is less than the predetermined value smoothing the image data using a small moving average filter when the dispersion value exceeds a first predetermined value, a medium moving average filter when the dispersion value is equal to or less than the first predetermined value and exceeds a second predetermined value, and a large moving average filter when the dispersion value is equal to or less than the second predetermined value, wherein each operation of the image processing method is executed by a microprocessor.