Patent ID: 8620109

Claim:
An image processing apparatus to process an input image, the input image having a first resolution and including a plurality of sub-areas, the apparatus comprising: an up-sampling section configured to carry out up-sampling processing to increase the number of pixels composing the input image, to generate an up-sampled image having a second resolution higher than said first resolution; a motion-compensated image generation section configured to perform correction processing to adjust a photographing-object position on said up-sampled image based on a difference between said up-sampled image and a reference image having said second resolution, to generate a motion-compensated image; a blending processing section configured to blend said up-sampled image with said motion-compensated image based on a blending coefficient, to generate an intermediate blended image, wherein the blending processing section compares said up-sampled image with said motion-compensated image for each of the image sub-areas and sets the blending coefficient based on the comparison; and an output-image generation section configured to receive and process said intermediate blended image and said up-sampled image to generate an output blended image, wherein the output blended image is equivalent to an image obtained by blending a super-resolution processing-result image obtained as a result of super-resolution processing carried out to increase the resolution of said input image with a noise-reduction processing-result image obtained as a result of noise reduction processing carried out to reduce noises of said input image.