An image processing apparatus includes; a mask image generation unit that specifies a region having a luminance value higher than a specific value as a mask region from a target image, generates a mask image by setting the luminance value of a region other than the mask region to zero, a mask expansion processing unit that specifies a portion of a region around the mask region that satisfies a condition and expands the mask region to the peripheral region, a smoothed image generation unit that smooths the entire luminance value of the target image, a corrected image generation unit that specifies a region matching the expanded mask region and sets the luminance value of a region other than the specified region to zero to generate a corrected image, an image synthesize unit that synthesizes the corrected image with the target image to generate a new image.