An image processing apparatus for outputting an image which contains different kinds of multi-level signals for letters, figures, photographs, screened-halftone, etc. The apparatus comprises a screened-halftone pattern detecting circuit and a continuous-tone pattern detecting circuit for detecting a screened-halftone pattern and a continuous-tone pattern, respectively, by using neighboring pixels of the target pixel, counters for counting UP/DOWN in accordance with the outputs of the detecting circuits, a filter for switching the filtering coefficients of the image signal in multiple stages in accordance with the outputs of the counters and a quantizer for bi-level-quantizing the output of the filter. It is thus possible to produce an image having a good quality free from deterioration due to the rapid switching of region judgements and bi-level-quantizing methods.