An image quality improving apparatus and method that distinguish an edge of an actual outline imagely recognized in an image inputted via an image input unit from those printed according to dither patterns, to emphasize the actual outline, and thereby acquire the image without distortion. The image quality improving apparatus comprises: a first unit estimating edge pixels of a text area in a predetermined detection area to be edge-detected from an input picture data containing a text and an image; and a second unit judging actual edge pixels based upon a number of edge-estimated pixels in a multiple window area and saturation values of individual edge-estimated pixels, and emphasizing individual actual edge pixels with different edge emphasis coefficients according to saturation values of the actual edge pixels.