Patent ID: 8089525

Claim:
A white balance control device that controls the white balance of an image obtained by image-capturing, the device comprising: a first computing unit that computes a first white balance correction value by detecting white pixels from the image; a face detection unit that detects a face region from the image; a determination unit that determines, after the white balance of an image signal in the face region detected by the face detection unit is corrected based on the first white balance correction value, whether the corrected image signal in the face region falls into a second color signal region surrounding a first color signal region representing a skin color; a second computing unit that computes, if the determination unit determines that the corrected image signal falls into the second color signal region, a second white balance correction value for correcting the white balance of the image based on a relationship between the corrected image signal of the face region and the first color signal region; and a modification unit that modifies, according to information obtained when the image was captured, the second white balance correction value computed by the second computing unit.