Image processing apparatus and image processing method

An image processing method to be executed by an image processing apparatus, comprising:

• a step of extracting an area of an object from an image as an object area;
• a division step of dividing the object area into a plurality of meshes and obtaining position information, gradient information, and color information of respective vertices which form the meshes;
• and
• a calculation step of determining the position information, gradient information, and color information of the vertices by dividing each of the meshes into a plurality of small areas, and performing processing for changing the position information, gradient information, and color information of the vertices so as to locally minimize differences between color information within the small areas and color information within the object area corresponding to the small areas,
• wherein in the calculation step, to divide each of the meshes into a plurality of small areas, the number of small areas or a size of each small area is changed in accordance with the number of times of the changing processing that is the number of times of change in position information, gradient information, and color information of the vertices.