1. A method for retargeting an image, comprising a computer system for performing steps of the method, comprising the steps of: segmenting an input image into a plurality of regions, wherein parameters of the segmenting include a spatial radius h s , a color radius h r , and a minimum number of pixels M for each of the plurality of regions; cutting selected regions from the input image to construct a background image; scaling the background image to a predetermined size; and pasting the selected regions into the scaled background image to produce an output image, and further comprising: constructing an importance map from the input image; assigning an importance to each of the plurality of regions; selecting the selected regions as important regions according to the importance map, in which a relative spatial relationship between the important regions is maintained in the output image.