The invention is an image processing apparatus for identifying a target area used as a target of processing among image data and performing predetermined processing, and is the image processing apparatus in which the image data is divided into plural partial areas based on a predetermined division rule and each of these plural partial areas is used as an attentional partial area and based on a feature quantity related to at least one of values or the number of pixels included in the attentional partial area and a feature quantity included in at least one of the other partial areas adjacent to each of the partial areas, a saliency feature value related to the attentional partial area is calculated and a target area used as a target of predetermined processing is decided based on the saliency feature value every each of the partial areas.