Patent ID: 8218035

Claim:
An image processing apparatus which corrects image data containing an image of a foreign substance by removing the image of the foreign substance, the foreign substance adhering to an optical element arranged in front of an image sensor for photoelectrically converting an object image, and outputs corrected image data as a visible image, comprising: an image pixel count acquisition unit adapted to acquire the number of pixels of the image of the image data; an output resolution acquisition unit adapted to acquire information about a resolution of the image to be output to the output device; a foreign substance correction unit adapted to correct the image of the foreign substance contained in the image data; and a control unit adapted to control a correction operation of the foreign substance correction unit on the basis of at least the number of pixels acquired by the image pixel count acquisition unit and the information about the resolution acquired by the output resolution acquisition unit; wherein the control unit controls the foreign substance correction unit so that a number of images of the foreign substances, which are corrected when the number of image pixels is larger than the number of output pixels, is larger than a number of images of the foreign substances which are corrected when the number of image pixels is equal to or smaller than the number of output pixels.