Patent ID: 8331700

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: an input processing unit which generates image data and attribute data indicating an attribute of each pixel of the image data from inputted data; a filter processing unit that performs a predetermined filter process on the image data generated by the input processing unit based on the attribute data generated by the input processing unit; a first data compression unit which is a lossy data compression unit that compresses the image data filtered by the filter processing unit; a second compression unit that compresses the attribute data generated by the input processing unit; a first expansion unit which expands the image data compressed by the first data compression unit; a second expansion unit which expands the attribute data compressed by the second data compression unit; and an output image processing unit which processes the image data expanded by the first expansion unit with a process condition corresponding to the attribute data expanded by the second expansion unit to output the image data expanded by the first expansion unit as image data with predetermined data characteristics, wherein the output image processing unit has a specific attribute area correcting unit which performs a correcting process to remove noise of a pixel in the expanded image data, which is caused by the compression, by replacing an image data value of the pixel having a specific attribute with a value corresponding to the specific attribute, and wherein the image processing apparatus further comprises a third data compression unit to apply lossy data compression again to the image data processed by the output image processing unit, and a unit which makes the specific attribute area correcting unit not to operate when the third data compression unit applies the lossy data compression to the image data.