Color Analyses on Digital Photos Using Machine Learning and KSCA - Focusing on Korean Natural Daytime/nighttime Scenery -

This study investigates the methods for deriving colors which can serve as a reference to users such as designers and or contents creators who search for online images from the web portal sites using specific words for color planning and more. Two experiments were conducted in order to accomplish this. Digital scenery photos within the geographic scope of Korea were downloaded from web portal sites, and those photos were studied to find out what colors were used to describe daytime and nighttime. Machine learning was used as the study methodology to classify colors in daytime and nighttime, and KSCA was used to derive the color frequency of daytime and nighttime photos and to compare and analyze the two results. The results of classifying the colors of daytime and nighttime photos using machine learning show that, when classifying the colors by 51~100%, the area of daytime colors was approximately 2.45 times greater than that of nighttime colors. The colors of the daytime class were distributed by brightness with white as its center, while that of the nighttime class was distributed with black as its center. Colors that accounted for over 70% of the daytime class were 647, those over 70% of the nighttime class were 252, and the rest (31-69%) were 101. The number of colors in the middle area was low, while other colors were classified relatively clearly into day and night. The resulting color distributions in the daytime and nighttime classes were able to provide the borderline color values of the two classes that are classified by brightness. As a result of analyzing the frequency of digital photos using KSCA, colors around yellow were expressed in generally bright daytime photos, while colors around blue value were expressed in dark night photos. For frequency of daytime photos, colors on the upper 40% had low chroma, almost being achromatic. Also, colors that are close to white and black showed the highest frequency, indicating a large difference in brightness. Meanwhile, for colors with frequency from top 5 to 10, yellow green was expressed darkly, and navy blue was expressed brightly, partially composing a complex harmony. When examining the color band, various colors, brightness, and chroma including light blue, achromatic colors, and warm colors were shown, failing to compose a generally harmonious arrangement of colors. For the frequency of nighttime photos, colors in approximately the upper 50% are dark colors with a brightness value of 2 (Munsell signal). In comparison, the brightness of middle frequency (50-80%) is relatively higher (brightness values of 3-4), and the brightness difference of various colors was large in the lower 20%. Colors that are not cool colors could be found intermittently in the lower 8% of frequency. When examining the color band, there was a general harmonious arrangement of colors centered on navy blue. As the results of conducting the experiment using two methods in this study, machine learning could classify colors into two or more classes, and could evaluate how close an image was with certain colors to a certain class. This method cannot be used if an image cannot be classified into a certain class. The result of such color distribution would serve as a reference when determining how close a certain color is to one of the two classes when the color is used as a dominant color in the base or background color of a certain design. Also, when dividing the analyzed images into several classes, even colors that have not been used in the analyzed image can be determined to find out how close they are to a certain class according to the color distribution properties of each class. Nevertheless, the results cannot be used to find out whether a specific color was used in the class and by how much it was used. To investigate such an issue, frequency analysis was conducted using KSCA. The color frequency could be measured within the range of images used in the experiment. The resulting values of color distribution and frequency from this study would serve as references for color planning of digital design regarding natural scenery in the geographic scope of Korea. Also, the two experiments are meaningful attempts for searching the methods for deriving colors that can be a useful reference among numerous images for content creator users of the relevant field.

머신러닝과 KSCA를 활용한 디지털 사진의 색 분석 -한국 자연 풍경 낮과 밤 사진을 중심으로-

본 연구에서는 색채 계획을 통해 콘텐츠를 제작할 때 참고할 만한 색을 도출하는 방법을 모색하기 위하여 진행되었다. 대상이 된 이미지는 한국 내의 자연풍광을 다룬 사진들로 머신러닝을 활용해 낮과 밤이 어떤 색으로 표현되는지 알아보고, KSCA를 통해 색 빈도를 도출하여 두 결과를 비교, 분석하였다. 낮과 밤 사진의 색을 머신러닝으로 구분한 결과, 51~100%로 구분했을 때, 낮의 색의 영역이 밤의 색보다 2.45배가량 더 많았다. 낮 class의 색은 white를 중심으로, 밤 class의 색은 black을 중심으로 명도에 따라 분포하였다. 낮 class 70%이상의 색이 647, 밤 class 70% 이상의 색이 252, 나머지(31-69%)가 101개로서 중간 영역의 색의 수는 적고 낮과 밤으로 비교적 뚜렷하게 구분되었다. 낮과 밤 class의 색 분포 결과를 통해 명도로 구분되는 두 class의 경계 색채값이 무엇인지 확인할 수 있었다. KSCA를 활용해 디지털 사진의 빈도를 분석한 결과는 전체적으로 밝은 낮 사진에서는 황색, 어두운 밤 사진에서는 청색 위주의 색이 표현되었음을 보여주었다. 낮 사진 빈도에서는 상위 40%에 해당하는 색이 거의 무채색에 가까울 정도로 채도가 낮았다. 또 white & black에 가까운 색이 가장 높은 빈도를 보여 명도차가 크다는 것을 알 수 있었다. 밤 사진의 빈도를 보면 상위 50% 가량 되는 색이 명도 2(먼셀 기호)에 해당하는 어두운 색이다. 그에 비해 빈도 중위권(50~80%)의 명도는 상대적으로 조금 높고(명도 3-4), 하위 20%에서는 여러 색들의 명도차가 크다. 난색들은 빈도 하위 8% 이내에서 간헐적으로 볼 수 있었다. 배색띠를 보았을 때, 전체적으로 남색을 위주로 조화로운 배색을 이루고 있었다. 본 연구의 색의 분포와 빈도의 결과값은 한국 내의 자연 풍경에 관한 디지털 디자인의 색채 계획에 참고 자료로 활용될 수 있을 것이다. 또한 색 분포를 나눈 결과는 해당색이 특정 디자인의 주조색이나 배경색으로 사용될 경우에 두 class 중 어느 쪽에 더 가까운 색인지에 대해 참고사항이 될 수 있을 것이며, 분석 이미지들을 몇 가지 class로 나눈다면, 각 class의 색 분포의 특성에 따라 분석 이미지에 사용되지 않은 색도 어느 class에 얼마큼 더 가까운 이미지인지 도출할 수 있을 것이다.