IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD FOR GATHERING VECTOR DATA FROM AN IMAGE

If the processing time of a labeling process performed on a target rectangle found to be an image of a character/line drawing is equal to or longer than a given threshold, an unprocessed region of the target rectangle which has not yet been labeled is analyzed (S401). In accordance with the analytical result, a color reducing process or resolution reducing process is performed on the unprocessed region (S402, S403, S404). A labeling process is performed on the processing result (S302). Vector data is generated on the basis of the labeling process result (S306).