Patent ID: 7551211

Claim:
An apparatus for processing a photographic image, comprising: an image pickup device for taking pictures of subjects; an image combining unit for overlaying a subject image as an image of a subject taken by an image pickup device, with a partially-transparent image having a transparent region set therein, thereby creating a composite image; a display for displaying the composite image thus created; a memory for storing the image taken by the image pickup device as a stored image; and a transparent-region setting unit for setting a transparent region in the stored image stored in the memory, thereby creating the transparent image, the transparent-region setting unit including: a stencil-pattern memory configured to store data on a plurality of stencil patterns in advance; a stencil-pattern selecting unit configured to select a single stencil pattern from a plurality of stencil patterns in response to a user's operation; a setting unit configured to set a shape, size and display position of the selected stencil pattern in response to the user's operation; a stencil pattern display unit configured to display the shape of the stencil pattern on the stored image in accordance with the size and display position; a modifying unit configured to transform the shape of the stencil pattern on the stored image in accordance with the outline of the subject by using an outline extracting method; a shape extracting unit configured to extract a region corresponding to the shape of the transformed stencil pattern from the stored image; and a transparent region determining unit configured to determine one of an interior and exterior of the extracted region on the stored image as the transparent region.