The present invention is directed to an image processing method, comprising: deriving a pixel statistical value of pixels and edge information for each of regions in a plurality of layers, the regions including attention pixels and having ranges that are successively narrower; correcting differential information between a pixel statistical value for a region in an attention layer and a pixel statistical value for a region in a layer wider than the region in the attention layer by using the edge information; correcting the pixel statistical value for the region in the attention layer by using the corrected differential information and the pixel statistical value for the region wider than the region in the attention layer; re-correcting the corrected pixel statistical value for the region in the attention layer by using a pixel statistical value for a region equal to or wider than a region in each of the layers and differential information between the uncorrected pixel statistical value for the region in the attention layer and the corrected pixel statistical value for the region in the attention layer; and correcting the attention pixel by repeating the correcting and the re-correcting the pixel statistical value for the region in the attention layer sequentially in the respective layers until the region is reduced from a maximum range to a minimum range.