Patent ID: 7800629

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for preventing degradation of image quality occurring when a bit format of an image is converted, the apparatus comprising: a decoder for decoding an input N-bit raw image, where N is an integer greater than 1; an image pre-processor for generating an error-compensated image by extracting an error value per pixel, which is a difference value between pixels of the same positions of the decoded N-bit image and an M-bit image to be converted, where M is an integer greater than 0 and less than N, generating an error-diffused image by accumulating a value obtained by multiplying the error value per pixel by a different weight proportion with respect to predetermined adjacent pixels, and adding the M-bit image to the error-diffused image; an M-bit converter for converting the error-compensated image to an M-bit image; an image compressor for compressing the converted M-bit image; a memory for storing the compressed M-bit image and an index table containing storage information of the M-bit image; and a controller for controlling the storing of the compressed M-bit image output from the image compressor in the memory and the storing of the storage information generated when the compressed M-bit image is stored in the memory in the index table.