IMAGE DECODING METHOD AND IMAGE ENCODING METHOD

The present invention aims to reduce a memory bandwidth during image coding. An image coding method includes an acquiring step and a generating step. The acquiring step includes acquiring a reference image. The generating step includes generating a predicted image having resolution larger than that of the reference image, by performing an interpolation to the acquired reference image according to a motion vector for each of the luminance component and the color difference component. The generating step includes generating the predicted image having the color difference component without performing a specific interpolation that means the interpolation processing in which a number of pixels to be accessed in the reference image is large, when a size of a block designated as a unit of the interpolation is smaller than a predetermined threshold value.