1. An image processing apparatus, comprising: a discrimination unit configured to discriminate between a first region, which is a consecutive region existing on a region exceeding a predetermined area in an input image, and a second region, which is other than the first region; a spatial filter unit configured to perform smoothing processing of differing strengths on the first region and the second region discriminated by the discrimination unit; and an image transformation unit configured to perform image transformation processing on the image on which smoothing processing was performed by the spatial filter unit.