To remove the image of dust deposited on the light receiving face of CCD 4 from an image which is picked up.

CCD 4 picks up images of a reference object in whole white and image data showing the reference object is obtained. A dust detection circuit 9 detects the position of dust in a reference object image displayed by reference object image data. Address data showing the position of dust is stored in a dust address data storage memory 10. When a user picks up the images of the object, image data obtained by image pickup is inputted to a dust correction circuit 11. Dust address data is read from the dust address data storage memory 10. The image of the position displayed by dust address data is removed from the object image as the image of dust.