IMAGE PROCESSING UNIT, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, PROGRAM FOR EXECUTING THE METHOD AND RECORDING MEDIUM FOR RECORDING THE PROGRAM

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image processing unit that can detect a low contrast character with high accuracy without detecting a shade caused at an edge of an original as a character. SOLUTION: A character edge is detected (3) from an image signal after gamma conversion (2). A correction value calculation circuit (4) calculates an edge gradient or the like to output a value (logical 1) denoting a character area and a value (logical 0) denoting a shade area, and a discrimination circuit (6) detects the character edge and discriminates it as a true character area and provides an output when outputting a character area.