1. An image processing apparatus comprising: an acquisition unit configured to acquire color image data and a background removal level of the color image data; a monochrome image data generation unit configured to generate monochrome image data based on the color image data; a background removal processing unit configured to apply background removal processing to the color image data based on the acquired background removal level; and a control unit configured to, according to the background removal level acquired by the acquisition unit, switch between applying the background removal processing by the background removal processing unit to the monochrome image data generated by the monochrome image data generation unit and generating monochrome image data by the monochrome image data generation unit based on the image data having undergone the background removal processing by the background removal processing unit.