1. An image processing apparatus comprising: a central processing unit (CPU) configured to: perform sampling on neighboring pixels of an image, the neighboring pixels being adjacently located to a current block for intra prediction according to block size of the current block for the intra prediction, wherein the sampling is performed in an event a frequency of a change in a texture pattern of the image is greater than a first predetermined threshold and the block size of the current block is larger than a second predetermined threshold; perform interpolation using the sampled neighboring pixels to reconstruct the neighboring pixels; and perform the intra prediction on a current pixel within the current block using the neighboring pixels as reference pixels for the intra prediction to generate a prediction image.