An image noise reducing method that can properly reduce both block noise
and mosquito noise without deterioration of the image quality is
provided. The method includes creating a first luminance component image
data with the boundaries of the blocks thereof smoothened, creating a
second luminance component image data with its entirety smoothened from
the first luminance component image data, creating edge image data by
subtracting the second luminance component image data from the first
luminance component image data, creating corrected edge image data by
applying correction to the edge image data under given conditions, and
creating third luminance component image data by adding the corrected
edge image data to the second luminance component image data. For
color-difference component image data, first color-difference component
image data with its entirety smoothened is created from the
color-difference component image data. The third luminance component
image data and the first color-difference component image data are
finally outputted.