Patent ID: 8199341

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising: an image area detecting portion which detects an image area, which is on a recording medium and formed with an image, from a document image used for forming an image onto the recording sheet; a pattern creating portion which creates a mask pattern having a special pattern incorporated into an area corresponding to a whole surface of the recording medium, and creates a copy prevention pattern by embedding a latent image, which comes up at a time of copying, only to the detected image area in the area in which the mask pattern is created; a print image creating portion which creates a print image by superimposing the created copy prevention pattern and the document image to each other; and an image area detection necessity receiving portion which receives from a user a selection input of whether or not the detection is to be performed by the image area detecting portion, wherein when the image area detection necessity receiving portion receives a selection input of performing the detection, the pattern creating portion creates the copy prevention pattern by embedding the latent image into the detected image area in the mask pattern creating area, and when the image area detection necessity receiving portion receives a selection input of not performing the detection, the pattern creating portion creates the copy prevention pattern by embedding the latent image into a whole area of the mask pattern.