The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, method, and program that can extract an object from an input image more easily and more accurately.A face detecting unit (31) detects a face from an input image, a mask area setting unit (33) sets a mask area which masks a person in the input image based on a position of the face detected by the face detecting unit (31), a background model updating unit (51) updates a background image by learning areas other than the mask area in the input image as the background image, and a separating unit (54) separates the input image into the background image and a foreground image which is an area of the person in the input image based on the background image updated by the background model updating unit (51) and the input image. The present invention can be applied to, for example, an image processing apparatus that extracts a person from an input image.