Patent Document ID: 7978909
Application ID: 12859033
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An image processing apparatus comprising: a calculating unit configured to calculate an evaluation amount of color tone for a pixel in an image; an extracting unit configured to extract a candidate pixel indicating poor color tone on the basis of the evaluation amount calculated by the calculating unit; an area extracting unit configured to extract an area formed of a plurality of candidate pixels extracted by the extracting unit, to determine whether the extracted area has a predetermined shape, and to extract the area that is determined to have the predetermined shape as a candidate area; an area combining unit configured to combine a plurality of candidate areas by determining a distance between the plurality of candidate areas by using a threshold for determining the distance between the plurality of candidate areas extracted by the area extracting unit, determining a shape of a circumscribed area by using an aspect ratio of the area circumscribed by the plurality of candidate areas, and combining the plurality of candidate areas in accordance with determination results of the distance between the plurality of candidate areas and the shape of the circumscribed area, wherein the calculating unit applies weights to an R component and a G component of the image, applies a weight smaller than the weights of the R component and the G component to a B component of the image, and calculates the evaluation amount from the R component, the G component and the B component of the image to which the weights have been applied.