A target extracting apparatus and method for extracting a target through probability modeling of pixel brightness values in an image, and a recording medium storing a program for performing the method, are disclosed. The method includes extracting a background image from an input image, modeling brightness values of the input image and the background image based on a Gaussian distribution to generate an input image modeling result and a background image modeling result, calculating likelihood ratios for determining whether a pixel in the input image corresponds to a target based on a correlation between the input image modeling result and the background image modeling result and target templates having different sizes; determining a location of the target based on the calculated likelihood ratios; and outputting the determined location of the target.