An observation apparatus including a light source that irradiates a subject with illumination light and special light that acts on a specific region of the subject； and a processor comprising hardware, wherein the processor is configured to implement: a return-light-image generating portion that generates a return-light image based on captured return light coming from the subject due to irradiation with the illumination light； a special-light-image generating portion that generates a special-light image based on captured signal light coming from the subject due to irradiation with the special light； an extraction portion that extracts the specific region from the special-light image； and an enhancement processing portion that performs enhancement processing, which is based on return-light image information, on the return-light image, in a region corresponding to the extracted specific region.
