To improve sharpness of an image by edge-enhancing any area but a person's face without edge-enhancing area of the person's face.

The person's input image data is converted into a digitized brightness data and a digitized color-difference data, and based on a skin area information detected by a skin area detector 2 detecting the skin area from the digitized brightness data and color-difference data, a edge-enhancer 4 is controlled to apply an edge-enhancement process to the brightness data of the person's image data. In addition, an amount of delay 5 corresponding to a time required for edge-enhancing the color-difference data of the person's input image data is provided by a delay unit.

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