1. An image processing apparatus comprising: a first discrimination unit that discriminates whether or not a target pixel belongs to a halftone dot region; a second discrimination unit that discriminates whether or not the target pixel belongs to a color region; a color region extending section that recognizes an extended region as an extended color region on condition that the extended region is formed by pixels that, the second discrimination unit has discriminated, belong to a color region; and a color halftone dot region discrimination unit that discriminates a region as a color halftone dot region in case the region is recognized as an extended color region by the color region extending section and is formed by pixels that, the first discrimination unit has discriminated, belong to a halftone dot region.