Patent ID: 7362368

Claim:
Within a digital acquisition device with an adjustable optical system having an auto focusing mechanism, a method of perfecting said auto focus mechanism of said adjustable optical system as part of an image capture process using face detection in said image capture process to achieve one or more desired image acquisition parameters, comprising: (a) identifying a plurality of groups of pixels that correspond to an image of a face within a digitally-captured image, and determining corresponding image attributes to said group of pixels; and (b) perfecting said auto focus by performing said auto focus on said plurality of groups of pixels that correspond to said image of said face, and (c) wherein said performing said auto focus on said plurality of groups being done by calculating a weighted average on the individual objects of said groups, wherein said calculating a weighted average is done based upon relative values as to an estimated importance of detected face regions, and (d) wherein identifying of face pixels is automatically performed by an image processing apparatus which receives a relative value as to the estimated importance of detected face regions, and (e) wherein the estimated importance of said detected face regions is based on at least one parameter including size of said faces or relative exposure of said face, or both.