Patent ID: 8126285

Claim:
A tone correcting apparatus for correcting a tone of an image input thereto, the apparatus comprising: a region setting unit that sets a plurality of block regions in the image; a first acquiring unit that acquires first brightness information indicating brightness of a target region that is selected from among the block regions set by the region setting unit; a second acquiring unit that acquires second brightness information indicating brightness of block regions that are adjacent to a block region that is set as the target region, the block regions being included in the block regions set by the region setting unit; a third acquiring unit that acquires third brightness information in accordance with a combination of the first brightness information and the second brightness information; a first correction characteristic setting unit that sets a first correction characteristic to a center pixel of each of the block regions, the first correction characteristic having a gain corresponding to the third brightness information; a face detecting unit that detects a group of block regions belonging to a face portion where a human face is positioned in the image; a fourth acquiring unit that acquires fourth brightness information indicating average brightness of the group of block regions detected by the face detecting unit; a second correction characteristic setting unit that sets a second correction characteristic having a gain corresponding to the fourth brightness information; a first gain limit setting unit that sets a first gain limit coefficient to the center pixel of each of the block regions belonging to the group of block regions, the first gain limit coefficient being set as a ratio between the first correction characteristic and the second correction characteristic; and a second gain limit setting unit that sets a second gain limit coefficient to the center pixels of each of the block regions except the group of block regions, the second gain limit coefficient being set based on the third brightness information.