Image processing apparatus, and method, and image capturing apparatus with determination of priority of a detected subject and updating the priority

摘要

Face regions are detected from a captured image, and a weight of each detected face region is computed based on a size and/or a position of the detected face region. Then a previous priority ranking weight is computed based on a priority ranking determined in previous processing. A priority of the face region is computed from the weight and the previous priority ranking weight. For example, if the continuous processing number exceeds the threshold the priority ranking weight is reduced. After the processing is completed for all face regions, a priority ranking of each face region is determined based on the priority computed for each face region.

主权项

1. An image processing apparatus that determines a primary subject from one or more subjects detected from an image, the image processing apparatus comprising a processor implementing the functions of:
a detection unit that detects one or more subjects from an image; a computation unit that computes, for each subject detected by the detection unit, a priority for determining a primary subject; and a determination unit that determines the primary subject based on the priority computed for each subject by the computation unit, wherein the computation unit updates a priority for each subject detected by the detection unit, by calculating the priority based on a size and/or position of the subject in an image as well as a most recent priority that was determined for the subject, if the most recent primary subject is detected by the detection unit and the primary subject determined by the determination unit is the same as the most recent primary subject, and wherein the computation unit updates a priority for each subject detected by the detection unit, by calculating the priority based on a size and/or position of the subject in an image but not based on the most recent priority determined for the subject, if the most recent primary subject is detected by the detection unit but the primary subject determined by the determination unit is different from the most recent primary subject.