Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Scribd
Upload
56 views

Lecture 3-Image Contrast Histogram Equalization

This document discusses image contrast, histograms, and point operations. It introduces histograms as a way to visualize the distribution of pixel intensities in an image. Histograms can help detect issues like over or underexposure. Point operations modify pixel intensities based on a mathematical function without considering neighboring pixels. Common point operations include addition, multiplication, thresholding, inversion, logarithmic and power law transforms. Histograms are useful for visualizing the effects of these operations on the distribution of intensities.

Uploaded by

Warnakulasuriya lowe
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
56 views

Lecture 3-Image Contrast Histogram Equalization

This document discusses image contrast, histograms, and point operations. It introduces histograms as a way to visualize the distribution of pixel intensities in an image. Histograms can help detect issues like over or underexposure. Point operations modify pixel intensities based on a mathematical function without considering neighboring pixels. Common point operations include addition, multiplication, thresholding, inversion, logarithmic and power law transforms. Histograms are useful for visualizing the effects of these operations on the distribution of intensities.

Uploaded by

Warnakulasuriya lowe
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 36

Image Contrast & Histograms

Lecture 3
EEE429-Image and Video Communications / EME408-Image Processing
and Vision
Nuwan Vithanage
Image Brightness
• Brightness of a grayscale image is the average intensity of all pixels in
image
Detecting Bad Exposure using Histograms
• Exposure? Are intensity values spread (good) out or bunched up
(bad)
Image Contrast
• The contrast of a grayscale image indicates how easily objects in the
image can be distinguished
• High contrast image: many distinct intensity values
• Low contrast: image uses few intensity values
• Good Contrast? Widely spread intensity values + large difference
between min and max intensity values
Contrast Equation?
• Many different equations for contrast exist
• Examples:

• Michalson’s equation for contrast

• These equations work well for simple images with 2 luminances (i.e.
uniform foreground and background)
• Does not work well for complex scenes with many luminances or if
min and max intensities are small
Histograms and Dynamic Range
• Dynamic Range: Number of distinct pixels in image

• Difficult to increase image dynamic range (e.g. interpolation)


• HDR (12‐14 bits) capture typical, then down‐sample
High Dynamic Range Imaging
• High dynamic range means very bright and very dark parts in a single
image (many distinct values)
• Dynamic range in photographed scene may exceed number of
available bits to represent pixels
• Solution:
• Capture multiple images at different exposures
• Combine them using image processing
Detecting Image Defects using Histograms
• No “best” histogram shape, depends on application
• Image defects
• Saturation: scene illumination values outside the sensor’s range are set to its
min or max values => results in spike at ends of histogram
• Spikes and Gaps in manipulated images (not original). Why?
Image Defects: Effect of Image Compression
• Histograms show impact of image compression
• Example: in GIF compression, dynamic range is reduced to only few
intensities (quantization)
Effect of Image Compression
• Example: Effect of JPEG compression on line graphics JPEG
compression designed for color images
Computing Histograms
Large Histograms: Binning
• High resolution image can yield very large histogram
• Example: 32‐bit image = 232 = 4,294,967,296 columns
• Such a large histogram impractical to display
• Solution? Binning!
• Combine ranges of intensity values into histogram columns
Calculating Bin Size
• Typically use equal sized bins
• Bin size?

• Example: To create 256 bins from 14‐bit image


Binned Histogram
• To calculate which bin a pixel’s intensity belong to

• Previous example. B=256, K = 214 = 16384


Color Image Histograms
• Two types:
1. Intensity histogram:
• Convert color image to gray scale
• Display histogram of gray scale
2. Individual Color Channel Histograms:
• 3 histograms (R,G,B)
Color Image Histograms
• Both types of histograms provide useful information about lighting,
contrast, dynamic range and saturation effects
• No information about the actual color distribution!
• Images with totally different RGB colors can have same R, G and B
histograms
• Solution to this ambiguity is the Combined Color Histogram.
• More on this later
Cumulative Histogram
• Useful for certain operations (e.g. histogram equalization) later
• Analogous to the Cumulative Density Function (CDF)
• Definition:

• Recursive definition

• Monotonically increasing
Cumulative Histogram
Point Operations
• Point operations changes a pixel’s intensity value according to some
function (don’t care about pixel’s neighbor)

• Also called a homogeneous operation


• New pixel intensity depends on
• Pixel’s previous intensity I(u,v)
• Mapping function f( )
• Does not depend on
• Pixel’s location (u,v)
• Intensities of neighboring pixels
Some Homogeneous Point Operations
• Addition (Changes brightness)

• Multiplication (Stretches/shrinks image contrast range)

• Real‐valued functions

• Quantizing pixel values


• Global thresholding
• Gamma correction
Non‐Homogeneous Point Operation
• New pixel value depends on:
• Old value + pixel’s location (u,v)
Clamping
• Deals with pixel values outside displayable range

• Function below will clamp (force) all values to fall within range [a,b]
Example: Modify Intensity and Clamp
• Point operation: increase image contrast by 50% then clamp values
above 255
Inverting Images

• 2 steps
1. Multiple intensity by ‐1
2. Add constant (e.g. amax) to put
result in range [0, amax]
Image Negatives (Inverted Images)
• Image negatives useful for enhancing white or grey detail embedded
in dark regions of an image
• Note how much clearer the tissue is in the negative image of the
mammogram below
Thresholding
• Input values below threshold ath set to a0
• Input values above threshold ath set to a1

• Converts grayscale image to binary image (Binarization) if


• a0 =0
• a1 =1
Thresholding Example
Thresholding and Histograms
• Example with ath = 128

• Thresholding splits histogram, merges halves into a0 , a1


Basic Grey Level Transformations
• 3 most common gray level transformation:
• Linear
• Negative/Identity
• Logarithmic
• Log/Inverse log
• Power law
• nth power/ nth root
Logarithmic Transformations
• Maps narrow range of input levels => wider range of output values
• Inverse log transformation does opposite transformation
• The general form of the log transformation is

• Log transformation of Fourier transform shows more detail


Power Law Transformations
• Power law transformations have the
form

• Map narrow range of dark input values


into wider range of output values or vice
versa
• Varying γ gives a whole family of curves
Power Law Example
• Magnetic Resonance (MR)
image of fractured human
spine
• Different power values
highlight different details
Intensity Windowing
• A clamp operation, then linearly stretching image intensities to fill
possible range
• To window an image in [a,b] with max intensity M
Intensity Windowing Example
Summary
• We have looked at:
• What is a histogram?
• How to create color image histogram?
• Point Operations

• Next time we will continue talk more about Point Operations &
Histogram Equalization

You might also like