Patent ID: 7903897

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for restoring a deteriorated image comprising: a processor performing the following operations: a change factor detecting operator for detecting change factor information in the image; an iterative processing operator which iterates a processing cycle comprising; a first processing step to apply a first calculation to a first image utilizing the change factor information to generate a second image, a difference data acquiring step to calculate difference data between the deteriorated image and the second image, a second processing step to apply a second calculation to the second image utilizing the difference data to generate a third image, and a replacing step to replace the first image with the third image; wherein, the processing cycle further comprises: (a) checking the sign of a first difference data acquired by the difference data acquiring step of a present cycle; and (b) checking the sign of a second difference data acquired by the difference data acquiring step once cycle before, (c) detecting whether a coincidence exists between the sign of the first difference data and the sign of the second difference data or not, and (d) increasing an absolute value of the difference data utilized in the second processing step when the coincidence is detected in step (c).