APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SETTING DEGREES OF IMPORTANCE, APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE SELECTION, APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PRINTING-RECOMMENDED IMAGE SELECTION, AND PROGRAMS THEREFOR

A plurality of images are classified into hierarchical categories. A degree of importance for each of the categories is set according to at least one of: the number of images therein, the number of images in an upper-level category, the number of categories related to the category, the number of hierarchical levels below the category, and the number of hierarchical levels from the uppermost level to the level of the category.