Patent ID: 8379958

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: an image input unit via which digital image data is inputted; an image correction unit which applies a correction processing to the digital image data; a subject detection unit which detects a specific human subject from the digital image data; a skin color setting unit which sets skin color information based on the detected human subject; a skin color information read unit which reads pre-defined skin color information; a skin color extraction unit which extracts based on the set skin color information, pixels having a skin color similar to a skin color represented by the skin color information from the digital image data; an area setting unit which puts together the extracted skin color pixels as an area to be corrected on a per area basis, sets a parameter for degree of beautiful-skin correction based on the human subject detection result and sets mask information used to apply a correction only to the area to be corrected; and an image output unit which produces output image data based on the inputted digital image data, the corrected image data and the mask information, said mask information including a boundary and an inner portion, wherein the degree of correction decreases in a direction from the inner portion to the boundary, a determining unit which determines that the human subject was not detected from the inputted digital image data; and a skin color setting unit which sets skin color information using the predetermined skin color information in a case where while there is a captured human subject in the inputted digital image data, the human subject is not detected by the determining unit.