Patent ID: 8310692

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: an image receiving unit that receives an image; an extraction unit that extracts a portion having been additionally written in the image received by the image receiving unit; a determination unit that determines a plurality of areas to be concealed in the received image based on the additionally written portion extracted by the extraction unit; an area conversion unit that reads out sizes of the plurality of areas determined by the determination unit and that converts the plurality of areas determined by the determination unit; and an image concealing unit that (i) determines sizes of concealing images based on the sizes of the plurality of areas read out by the area conversion unit, (ii) generates the concealing images in the determined sizes and (iii) conceals the plurality of areas determined by the determination unit in the received image using the generated concealing images, each of which has a same size, wherein: the area conversion unit converts a size of each of the plurality of determined areas based on the sizes of the plurality of determined areas, the area conversion unit calculates an average size of the plurality of the determined areas, and the image concealing unit generates the concealing images in the average size calculated by the area conversion unit and conceals the plurality of determined areas using the generated concealing images.