Patent ID: 8160383

Claim:
A tone correcting apparatus for correcting a tone of an image, the apparatus comprising: a first determination device that determines which one of previously defined first brightness levels a focused region corresponds to, the focused region being selected from among a plurality of block regions that are set to cover an entire area of the image; a second determination device that determines which one of previously defined second brightness levels an adjacent block region corresponds to, the adjacent block region being at least one of the block regions that is adjacent to the focused region; a correction device that corrects a brightness of pixels included in the focused region based on a combination of the first brightness level determined by the first determination device and the second brightness level determined by the second determination device; a third determination device that determines which one of previously defined third brightness levels the combination of the first brightness level and the second brightness level corresponds to, the third brightness levels being previously defined to be more detailed than the first brightness level and the second brightness level, wherein the correction device corrects the brightness of the pixels included in the focused region based on the third brightness level determined by the third determination device; a first characteristic setting device that sets a first correction characteristic for each of the block regions, the first correction characteristic being selected from among a plurality of correction characteristics in accordance with the third brightness level determined by the third determination device for the respective block regions; and a second characteristic setting device that sets a second correction characteristic for the pixels included in the image, the second correction characteristic being derived from the first correction characteristic, wherein the correction device corrects the brightness of the pixels included in the image based on the second correction characteristic.