To determine an area of a whiteout applied on an original, an area in which an output of a CCD is saturated is determined to be a correction trace area based on image read in an exposure-down having exposure reduced from a normal exposure amount. Correction trace information obtained by determining and detecting the correction trace area is correlated with image data to be stored as attribute information of an image file. When the image file is displayed on a PC screen, the correction trace area of an original image read based on position information of a correction trace contained in the attribute information transferred from an image reading apparatus is highlighted.