1. An image processing apparatus, having: a white-saturation detection unit for detecting a white saturated pixel from image data; a false-color-pixel detection-area setting unit for setting a false-color-pixel detection area around the white-saturated pixel detected by the white-saturation detection unit, the false-color-pixel detection-area setting unit further comprising: a reference-image analyzing unit for receiving a reference image in which a pixel at a position corresponding to a white-saturated pixel in an image to be processed does not have a saturation luminance value and for obtaining a luminance value of the reference-image pixel corresponding to the white-saturated pixel in the image to be processed, the reference image being a photographed image of the same subject as the image to be processed; and a false-color-pixel detection-area determining unit for setting a false-color-pixel detection area in accordance with the luminance value of the corresponding reference-image pixel, the luminance value being obtained by the reference-image analyzing unit; a false-color detection unit for identifying pixels having color corresponding to false color as false-color pixels in the area set by the false-color-pixel detection-area setting unit; and a pixel-value correction unit for executing pixel-value correction processing, based on values of surrounding pixels, on the false-color pixels detected by the false-color detection unit.