Provided are a method and apparatus for extracting facial features from an image containing a face. The method and apparatus filter an input image using a filter set for face recognition at each of predetermined locations in the input image, merge values obtained by filtering the input image at locations, which are horizontally symmetrical to each other with respect to the center of the face, and synthesize values obtained by filtering the input image at locations which are not symmetrical to each other with respect to the center of the face with the merged values. Therefore, the time, feature values, and storage space required to extract or compare facial features can be significantly reduced. In addition, a face recognition system that runs well on low specification hardware can be implemented.