The execution of a calibration process according to a characteristic of an image formation unit is properly controlled. To do so, it is provided an image processing method of executing the calibration process of newly creating a database file according to the characteristic of the image formation unit on the basis of an original database file according to the kind of the image formation unit, and of storing the created database file in correspondence with the characteristic of the image formation unit, wherein version information of the original database file is compared with version information of the created database file, and the execution of the calibration process is controlled based on the compared result.