IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD THEREFOR

Brightness feature information on the brightness of an image to be processed is extracted, and color feature information on the color of the image is extracted. A determination unit determines whether color information of the image to be processed is sufficient. When color information of a reference comparison image is sufficient as a result of determination, a color feature information comparison unit performs a similarity comparison between color feature information of the reference comparison image and that of a target comparison image. When the color information of the reference comparison image is insufficient, a brightness feature information comparison unit performs a similarity comparison between brightness feature information of the reference comparison image and that of the target comparison image. A retrieval result display displays an image serving as a retrieval result on the basis of the comparison result.