An image processing apparatus includes: a region extracting unit extracts a character region on an image; a character recognizing unit that recognizes characters in the character region extracted by the region extracting unit; a translating unit that translates a recognition result obtained by the character recognizing unit; and a changing unit that changes a constitution of the image with respect to the character region extracted by the region extracting unit according to a direction of the characters in the character region extracted by the region extracting unit, and according to a direction of the characters of the language translated by the translating unit.