Image compression that keeps a balance between improvement in visual recognizability by highlighting a character color of a reversed character and a reduction in an apparent difference between an input image and a restored image is implemented. An image processing apparatus including a specifying unit configured to specify a character within an image, a setting unit configured to set a representative color to the specified character by using colors of pixels constituting the specified character, a determination unit configured to determine whether the specified character is a reversed character, and a correction unit configured to correct the set representative color in the case where the specified character is determined to be a reversed character.