Patent ID: 7912300

Claim:
An image processing apparatus which encodes image data, the apparatus comprising: at least one processor configured to perform as: an input unit which inputs image data as an encoding target on an image block basis; a lossless encoding unit which generates lossless encoded data by losslessly encoding image data of an image block input by said input unit; a resolution conversion unit which converts the image data of the image block input by said input unit into image data with a resolution lower than a resolution of the image block; a lossy encoding unit which generates lossy encoded data by lossily encoding image data after resolution conversion by said resolution conversion unit; a determination unit which determines, on the basis of image data of an image block of interest input by said input unit, whether an image of the image block of interest has a property belonging to a specific image; a first selecting unit which, when said determination unit determines that the image of the image block of interest does not have a property belonging to a specific image, compares a data amount of the lossless encoded data generated by said lossless encoding unit and a data amount of the lossy encoded data generated by said lossy encoding unit, selects and outputs the encoded data with a smaller data amount; and a second selecting unit which, when said determination unit determines that the image of the image block of interest has a property belonging to a specific image, selects and outputs predetermined one of the encoded data generated by said lossless encoding unit and said lossy encoding unit.