Image processing apparatus

An image processing apparatus comprising:

• a filtering processing unit that executes a filtering process to suppress a background noise of input image data;
• a threshold setting unit that sets a binarization threshold for the input image data having undergone the filtering process;
• a background noise determination threshold setting unit that determines that a tone value at which a number of pixels of a background noise of the input image data having undergone the filtering process reaches a peak is a background peak tone value and that sets, as a background noise determination threshold, a tone value having a density higher than a density of the background peak tone value and having a number of pixels within a specific range of percentages of the number of pixels at the peak;
• a background noise reduction processing unit that executes a background noise reduction process on the input image data having undergone the filtering process in accordance with the binarization threshold and the background noise determination threshold;
• and
• a binarization processing unit that executes a binarization process on the input image data having undergone the background noise reduction process in accordance with the binarization threshold.