Patent US 9,747,671

A non-local means method is insufficient in its noise reduction effect or edge retainability due to a perfect match between blocks in a case where a reference pixel matches a target pixel. Therefore, information on a target region and plural reference regions is obtained for the target pixel. Whether the target region matches any one of the reference regions is determined from the obtained information. Switching between weight derivation methods based on similarity between the target region and the reference region is performed according to a determined result.