Patent ID: 8509529

Claim:
An apparatus for deciding a representative color of a color image, comprising: a grouping device configured to divide pixels, which construct a color image represented by applied color image data, into a plurality of groups in color space in such a manner that pixels at positions close to one another in color space will belong to the same group; a representative candidate color deciding device configured to decide as a representative candidate color, group by group, any one color among the colors belonging to each group of the plurality of groups divided by said grouping device; and a candidate color deciding device configured to decide that, from among a plurality of representative candidate colors decided group by group by said representative candidate color deciding device, the color of one or a plurality of pixels present at a position remote from the position of gray in this color space is the representative color of the color image, wherein said grouping device divides the pixels into a plurality of group spaces of equal size to which pixels for which the positions of the color thereof in color space are close together belong; wherein said representative color deciding device includes: a first score calculating device configured to score distance, in said color space, between a representative candidate color that has been decided for every group by said representative candidate color deciding device and a color that has been decided in advance; and a second score calculating device configured to score the number of pixels in each group space; said representative color deciding device deciding the representative color of the color image based upon the scores obtained by said first score calculating device and the scores obtained by said second score calculating device.