An image processing method for a picture of a participant, photographed in an event, such as a marathon race, increases the accuracy of recognition of a race bib number by performing image processing on a detected race bib area, and associates the recognized race bib number with a person included in the picture. This image processing method detects a person from an input image, estimates an area in which a race bib exists based on a face position of the detected person, detects an area including a race bib number from the estimated area, performs image processing on the detected area to thereby perform character recognition of the race bib number from an image subjected to image processing, and associates the result of character recognition with the input image.