IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

In an image processing apparatus, a min-max pixel difference value computing unit computes the difference between the maximum and minimum pixel values in a first image portion including a target pixel and neighbor pixels. A maximum adjacent pixel difference value computing unit computes the maximum value among the difference values between adjacent pixels in the first image portion. An image change feature value computing unit computes a feature value corresponding to the suddenness of image change in the first image portion. A filter coefficient computing unit computes filter coefficients. A sharpen filter accepts, as input, pixels forming a second image portion including the same target pixel as the first image portion and neighbor pixels, and computes an output pixel value for the target pixel.