IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

摘要

This invention is directed to improving the quantitativity of observation by displaying a fluorescent area of high brightness without any changes even if the observation distance varies. An image processing apparatus (6) comprises: an illuminating unit (4) that irradiates an illumination light and an excitation light to a subject (A); a fluorescence capturing unit (5) that captures a fluorescence occurring in the subject (A), thereby acquiring a fluorescent image (G1); a return light capturing unit (5) that captures a return light returning from the subject (A), thereby acquiring a return light image (G2); a color image generating unit (18) that adds different pieces of color information, which constitute a color space, to the acquired fluorescent image (G1) and return light image (G2), thereby generating a plurality of color images; and an image combining unit (20) that combines the plurality of generated color images. The color image generating unit (18) subjects at least one of the fluorescent image (G1) and return light image (G2) to a correction process that causes the indices of the distance characteristics of the fluorescent image (G1) and return light image (G2), which are approximated to exponential functions, to be coincident with each other.