Provided is an apparatus and method for generating an image for character region extraction. Upon input of an original image, a candidate character image is generated from the original image and a plurality of binarization maps for similar colors are generated from the generated candidate character image. A binarization map including a background region is selected from among the plurality of generated binarization maps, and the background region of the selected binarization map is expanded. The expanded background region is inverted to generate an image including a character region, thereby generating an image for accurately extracting the character region without missing a boundary portion of a character.