• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.77-83
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• 2016

This paper presents an adaptive retinex algorithm using skewness for contrast enhancement of color images. In order to estimate the degree of low contrast of an image, skewness of luminance of an observed image is used to define a parameter, and a non-linear function is proposed to compensate the reflectance using the parameter and estimated reflectance. In addition, determination of gain and offset of the non-linear function is addressed using statistics of the estimated reflectance. The relation between an observed luminance and the compensated luminance is used to compensate color components with the reduction of computational cost. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has the capability to effectively improve the contrast without color distortion.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.220-227
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• 2019

Purpose: To evaluate the usefulness of wash-in color map in detecting early enhancement of prostate focal lesion compared to whole dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DEC MRI) images. Materials and Methods: This study engaged 50 prostate cancer patients who underwent multiparametric MRI and radical prostatectomy as subjects. An expert [R1] and a trainee [R2] independently evaluated early enhancement and recorded the time needed to review 1) a wash-in color map and 2) whole DCE MRI images. Results: The review of whole DCE images by R1 showed fair agreement with color map by R1, whole images by R2, and color map by R2 (weighted kappa values = 0.59, 0.44, and 0.58, respectively). Both readers took a significantly shorter time to review the color maps as compared to whole images (P < 0.001). Conclusion: A trainee could achieve better agreement with an expert when using wash-in color maps than when using whole DCE MRI images. Also, color maps took a significantly shorter evaluation time than whole images.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2012

An image obtained from a low light environment results in a low-exposure problem caused by non-ideal camera settings, i.e. aperture size and shutter speed. Of particular note, the multiple color-filter aperture (MCA) system inherently suffers from low-exposure problems and performance degradation in its image classification and registration processes due to its finite size of the apertures. In this context, this paper presents a novel method for the color enhancement of low-exposure images and its application to color shift model-based MCA system for image refocusing. Although various histogram equalization (HE) approaches have been proposed, they tend to distort the color information of the processed image due to the range limits of the histogram. The proposed color enhancement algorithm enhances the global brightness by analyzing the basic cause of the low-exposure phenomenon, and then compensates for the contrast degradation artifacts by using an adaptive histogram specification. We also apply the proposed algorithm to the preprocessing step of the refocusing technique in the MCA system to enhance the color image. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method can enhance the contrast of any low-exposure color image acquired by a conventional camera, and is suitable for commercial low-cost, high-quality imaging devices, such as consumer-grade camcorders, real-time 3D reconstruction systems, digital, and computational cameras.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.38A no.11
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• pp.928-937
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• 2013

This paper presents a novel contrast enhancement method based on singular value decomposition and image pyramid. The proposed method consists mainly of four steps. The proposed algorithm firstly decomposes image into band-pass images, including basis image and detail images, to improve both the global contrast and the local detail. In the global contrast process, singular value decomposition is used for contrast enhancement; the local detail scheme uses weighting factors. In the final image composition process, the proposed algorithm combines color and luminance components in order to preserve the color consistency. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves contrast performance and enhances detail compared to conventional methods.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.840-866
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• 2014

Visibility in underwater images is usually poor because of the attenuation of light in the water that causes low contrast and color variation. In this paper, a new approach for underwater image quality improvement is presented. The proposed method aims to improve underwater image contrast, increase image details, and reduce noise by applying a new method of using contrast stretching to produce two different images with different contrasts. The proposed method integrates the modification of the image histogram in two main color models, RGB and HSV. The histograms of the color channel in the RGB color model are modified and remapped to follow the Rayleigh distribution within certain ranges. The image is then converted to the HSV color model, and the S and V components are modified within a certain limit. Qualitative and quantitative analyses indicate that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in terms of contrast, details, and noise reduction. The image color also shows much improvement.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.22-29
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose an adaptive color enhancement algorithm. It is used for the flat panel displays (FPDs) such as LCD, PDP, and so on. The proposed algorithm consists of an adaptive linear approximation CDF(Cumulative Density Function) algorithm and an adaptive saturation enhancement algorithm. The one is for contrast enhancement which prevents an image from the distortion by luminance transient of an input image. The other is the algorithm which improves the saturation without the contour artifact and over-saturation, whose problems are generated during the enhancing saturation. In addition, it allows to achieve the high quality image using the saturation enhancement method for a preferred color of original image. Visual test and standard deviation of their histograms have been applied to evaluate the resultant output images of the proposed algorithm.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.7-12
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• 2003

We discuss main techniques to improve legibility of electroluminescent displays. Emphasis is placed on use of destructive optical interference to cancel ambient light reflected from the back electrode of the device. Basic optical principles and material composition of the optical interference contrast-enhancing stack (CES) are presented. We also describe the improved human factors of electroluminescent devices assisted with a CES. Achromatic contrast is the most important contributor to display's legibility. In some conditions color contrast may also be important. Contributing to both luminance and color contrast enhancement, the contrast-enhancing stack may play an important role in various display applications.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.130-139
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• 2013

This paper proposes a new approach for enhancing digital images based on red channel information, which has the most analogous characteristics to invisible infrared rays. Specifically, a red channel in RGB space is used to analyze the image contents and improve the visual quality of the input images but it can cause unexpected problems, such as the over-enhancement of reddish input images. To resolve this problem, inter-channel correlations between the color channels were derived, and the weighting parameters for visually pleasant image fusion were estimated. Applying the parameters resulted in significant brightness as well as improvement in the dark and bright regions. Furthermore, simple contrast and color corrections were used to maintain the original contrast level and color tone. The main advantages of the proposed algorithm are 1) it can improve a given image considerably with a simple inter-channel correlation, 2) it can obtain a similar effect of using an extra infrared image, and 3) it is faster than other algorithms compared without artifacts including halo effects. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach could produce better natural images than the existing enhancement algorithms. Therefore, the proposed scheme can be a useful tool for improving the image quality in consumer imaging devices, such as compact cameras.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.1481-1490
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• 2017

This paper presents an image quality enhancement algorithm for dark image acquired under poor lighting condition. Various retinex algorithms which are human perception-based image processing methods were proposed to solve this problem. Although MSR(Multi-Scale Retinex) among these algorithm works well under most lighting condition, it shows color degradation because their separate nonlinear processing of RGB color channels. To compensate for the loss of the color, MSRCR(Multi-Scale Retinex with Color Restoration) was proposed. However, it requires high computational load and has additional parameters that need to be adjusted according to input image. In order to overcome this problem, a new retinex algorithm based on MSR is proposed in this paper. The proposed method consists of V channel MSR, saturation correction, and separate contrast enhancement process. Experimental results show that the subjective and objective image quality of the proposed method better than those of the conventional methods.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.651-661
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• 2008

This paper proposes a novel contrast enhancement (CE) algorithm for color images using the modified error diffusion (ED). After conventional color histogram equalization (HE), artifacts such as false contours are produced in the contrast enhanced image. The proposed CE algorithm using the modified ED consists of two parts: CE and ED. In the first part, a low-contrast input image is enhanced by the conventional HE method. In the second part, we use the modified ED algorithm. The inputs of the second part are the average and scaled difference images of the original color input image and the HE image, in which the scaled color difference image is diffused by the ED algorithm. In the proposed algorithm, the modified ED algorithm reduces the artifacts produced in the HE image, and increases the number of color levels. Computer simulations with a number of low-contrast color images show the effectiveness of the proposed CE method in terms of the visual quality as well as the probability mass function. It can be used as a post-processing for CE with simultaneous artifact reduction in various display devices.