UNIT IIIIMAGE

ENHANCEMENT IN THE SPATIAL DOMAIN

INTRODUCTION :
The image enhancement is one of the most interesting and visually appearing
areas of image processing.
Enhancement is a fundamental task in digital image processing and analysis,
aiming to improve the appearance of image in terms of human brightness
perception

To Process an image so that the result will be more suitable than the original
image for a specific application.

The suitableness is up to each application.

A method which is quite useful for enhancing an image may not necessarily
be the best approach for enhancing another images.
Image Enhancement falls under 2 categories :

Spatial Domain : (image plane)

Techniques are based on direct manipulation of pixels in an image

Frequency Domain :

Techniques are based on modifying the Fourier transform of an image

There are some enhancement techniques based on various combinations of

methods from these two categories.

For human visual

The visual evaluation of image quality is a highly subjective process.

It is hard to standardize the definition of a good image.

For machine perception

The evaluation task is easier.

A good image is one which gives the best machine recognition results.

A certain amount of trial and error usually is required before a particular

image enhancement approach is selected.
SPATIAL DOMAIN :

Procedures that operate directly on pixels.

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ENHANCEMENT IN THE SPATIAL DOMAIN

g(x,y) = T[f(x,y)]
where

f(x,y) is the input image

g(x,y) is the processed image

T is an operator on f defined over some neighborhood of (x,y)

POINT PROCESSING:

Neighborhood = 1x1 pixel

g depends on only the value of f at (x,y)

T = gray level (or intensity or mapping) transformation function

s = T(r)

Where

r = gray level of f(x,y)

s = gray level of g(x,y)

3 BASIC GRAY-LEVEL TRANSFORMATION FUNCTIONS :

Linear function

Logarithm function

Negative and identity transformations

Log and inverse-log transformation

Power-law function

nth power and nth root transformations

LINEAR FUNCTION
Image Negatives:

An image with gray level in the range [0, L-1]

where L = 2n ; n = 1, 2

Negative transformation :
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s = L 1 r

Reversing the intensity levels of an image.

Suitable for enhancing white or gray detail embedded in dark regions

of an image, especially when the black area dominant in size.

Identity :
Output intensities are identical to input intensities.
Is included in the graph only for completeness.

LOGARITHM FUNCTION
Log Transformations:
s = c log (1+r)

c is a constant
and r 0

Log curve maps a narrow range of low

gray-level values in the input image into a wider range of output levels.

Used to expand the values of dark pixels in an image while

compressing the higher-level values.

Inverse Logarithm Transformations:

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ENHANCEMENT IN THE SPATIAL DOMAIN

Do opposite to the Log Transformations

Used to expand the values of high pixels in an

image while compressing the darker-level values.

POWER-LAW FUNCTION(Transformations)

s = cr
c and are positive constants
Power-law curves with fractional values of map a
narrow range of dark input values into a wider
range of output values, with the opposite being true
for higher values of input levels.
c = = 1 a Identity function
When the is reduced too much, the image begins
to reduce contrast to the point where the image
started to have very slight wash-out look,
especially in the background

Piecewise-Linear Transformation Functions

Advantage:
The form of piecewise functions can be arbitrarily complex
Disadvantage:
Their specification requires considerably more user input

Contrast Stretching:

Produce higher contrast than the original by

darkening the levels below m in the original image
Brightening the levels above m in the original image

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Thresholding:

Produce a two-level (binary) image

Gray-level slicing :

Highlighting a specific range of gray levels in an image

Display a high value of all gray levels in the range of interest and
a low value for all other gray levels

(a) transformation highlights range [A,B] of gray level and reduces all
others to a constant level

(b) transformation highlights range [A,B] but preserves all other levels

Bit-plane slicing:

Highlighting the contribution made to total image

appearance by specific bits
Suppose each pixel is represented by 8 bits
Higher-order bits contain the majority of the
visually significant data
Useful for analyzing the relative importance played
by each bit of the image
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ENHANCEMENT IN THE SPATIAL DOMAIN

Example :

The (binary) image for bit-plane 7 can be obtained by processing the

input image with a thresholding gray-level transformation.
Map all levels between 0 and 127 to 0
Map all levels between 129 and 255 to 255

Histogram Processing:
Histogram is a graphical tool

developed by Statisticians to visualize

frequency distributions, it has a very specific meaning when used in the context of
digital images. We go with black and white images, in which each pixel has a
specific brightness level which is stored in the computer as a number between 0
and 255.Zero corresponds to black and 255 to white.

Basic for numerous spatial domain processing techniques

Used effectively for image enhancement
Information inherent in histograms also is useful in image compression
and segmentation

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Histogram of a digital image with gray levels in the range [0,L-1] is a

discrete function
h(rk) = nk
Where
rk : the kth gray level
nk : the number of pixels in the image having gray level rk
h(rk) : histogram of a digital image with gray levels rk

Example:

Normalized Histogram :

p(rk)

dividing each of histogram at gray level rk by the total number of pixels

in the image, n
= nk / n
For k = 0,1,,L-1
p(rk) gives an estimate of the probability of occurrence of gray level rk
The sum of all components of a normalized histogram is equal to 1

EXAMPLE:
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Histogram Equalization:
Histogram equalization employs a monotonic, non-linear mapping which reassigns the intensity values of pixels in the input image such that the output
image contains a uniform distribution of intensities (i.e. a flat histogram).

It is a common technique for enhancing the appearance of images. A perfect

image is one which has equal no. of pixels in all its gray levels.
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Hence to get a perfect image our objective is not only to spread the dynamic
range but also to have equal pixels in all the gray levels. This technique is
known as Histogram Equalization

As the low-contrast images histogram is narrow and centered toward

the middle of the gray scale, if we distribute the histogram to a wider
range the quality of the image will be improved.
We can do it by adjusting the probability density function of the original
histogram of the image so that the probability spread equally

Example

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ENHANCEMENT IN THE SPATIAL DOMAIN

Histogram Matching (Specification):

Histogram equalization has a disadvantage which is that it can

generate only one type of output image.
With Histogram Specification, we can specify the shape of the
histogram that we wish the output image to have.
It doesnt have to be a uniform histogram

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