Patent ID: 6940526

Claim:
An image synthesizing apparatus for producing a synthetic image from at least first and second images, wherein the synthetic image consists of a background image and at least a main image superimposed on the background image, said apparatus comprising: a first display section for displaying said at least first and second images one by one in large magnification upon each of said images being selected from among images input in said image synthesizing apparatus; a second display section for displaying an outer frame and at least an inner frame located inside said outer frame in small magnification; a frame selecting device for selecting one of said outer and inner frames as displayed in said second display section; a crop boundary displayed on said image in said first display section, said crop boundary having a similar shape to the frame that is selected by said frame selecting device; a frame modifying device for modifying any of said outer and inner frames by homothetically changing size or position of said crop boundary relative to the image displayed in said first display section; and a cropping and pasting device for cropping areas of said first and second images that are each individually bounded by said crop boundary, and pasting the cropped area of said first image as the background image in said outer frame, and the cropped area of said second image as the main image in said inner frame; wherein said synthetic image synthesized by said cropping and pasting device is displayed on said second display section with said outer frame and said inner frame, sizes of a part of said first image and a part of said second image which constitute said synthetic image being smaller than those sizes displayed on said first display section.