A face importance level determining apparatus for determining an importance level for a photographer with respect to a face of a person appearing in an image may include the following elements. A face information obtaining unit obtains face size information and position information that are detected from an input image signal. A first calculating unit calculates a first importance level factor on the basis of the size information. A second calculating unit calculates a second importance level factor on the basis of the position information. A third calculating unit calculates the importance level on the basis of the first importance level factor and the second importance level factor.