Patent ID: 7636473

Claim:
An image processing device for adjusting colors in an image targeted for processing, comprising: an achromatic-object color range selecting module configured to establish a plurality of achromatic-object color ranges each including some colors of an achromatic photographed object in the image targeted for processing, and to select at least one of the plurality of achromatic-object color ranges based on the image targeted for processing; and a color adjustment processing module configured to perform a color adjusting process on the image targeted for processing based on the selected achromatic-object color range, wherein the color adjustment processing module includes a color balance correction value computing module configured to compute a color balance correction value based on pixel values of achromatic-object-color pixels which have color within the selected achromatic-object color range among pixels of the image targeted for processing, and a color balancing module configured to perform color balancing on the entire image targeted for processing using the color balance correction value, wherein the achromatic-object color range selecting module includes a population index value computing module configured to compute, with respect to each achromatic-object color range, a population index value correlated to the number of pixels having colors within the achromatic-object color range, and the achromatic-object color range selecting module selects at least that achromatic-object color range which has the greatest population index value among the plurality of achromatic-object color ranges, and wherein the achromatic-object color range selecting module has a two-range selection mode for additionally selecting the achromatic-object color range having a second greatest population index value when a difference of the second greatest population index value and the greatest population index value is less than a difference threshold.