An auxiliary light source such as a flash is controlled for highly
accurately reflecting a lighting condition with less effect of a factor
other than the lighting condition such as contrasting density caused by
shadow or black compression or white compression. For this purpose, a
parameter acquisition unit obtains weighting parameters for principal
components representing lighting conditions in a face region in an image
detected by a face detection unit, by fitting to the detected face region
a mathematical model generated according to a method of AAM using a
plurality of sample images representing human faces in different lighting
conditions. A flash control unit obtains a flash control condition by
referring to a reference table according to the parameters, and controls
flash light emission according to the control condition.