Patent ID: 8675958

Claim:
A photographic subject determination method, comprising: a binarization step of creating a plurality of binarized images of a subject image, based upon color information or luminance information in the subject image; an evaluation value calculation step of, for each of the plurality of binarized images, calculating an evaluation value that is used for specifying at least one of a position, a size, and a shape of a photographic subject within the subject image, the evaluation value including i) a first evaluation value that is calculated based upon an area of a white pixel region that is made up by white pixels within a binarized image, and a value that shows a state of a set of white pixels within the white pixel region; ii) a second evaluation value that is calculated based upon an area of an enveloping rectangle that envelopes the set of the white pixels within the binarized image and an area of the set of the white pixels; iii) a third evaluation value that is calculated based upon an aspect ratio of the enveloping rectangle; and iv) a fourth evaluation value that is calculated based upon a size of a region that includes a face of a person; and a photographic subject specification step of specifying at least one of the position, the size, and the shape of a photographic subject within the subject image, based upon the evaluation value, wherein in the photographic subject specification step, from among the plurality of white pixel regions, some of the white pixel regions are eliminated based upon the second evaluation value, the third evaluation value, and the fourth evaluation value, and, from among remaining ones of the white pixel regions, the white pixel regions whose first evaluation value are large are specified as photographic subject candidates.