• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.1-7
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• 2012

Generally, correction methods for faded images use illuminant estimation algorithms, such as the gray world assumption and white patch Retinex methods, as the phenomenon of color fading is regarded as an illuminant effect. However, this induces inaccurate faded color correction, as images fade at different rates according to the ink property, temperature, humidity, and illuminant. Therefore, this paper presents a color correction method for faded images using classification in LCybCrg color space. The input faded image is first separated according to the chromaticity based on LCybCrg opponent color space. The faded color correction is then performed based on the gray world assumption in RGB color space. Thereafter, weights calculated from CybCrg values are applied to reduce contour artifacts. As a result, the proposed method provides better color correction for faded images than previous methods.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.39A no.8
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• pp.459-466
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• 2014

Fading effect of old pictures and printings is shown up differently according to the ink property, temperature, humidity, illuminants, and so on. Faded image enhancement techniques based on illuminant estimation are proposed such as the gray world algorithm and white patch retinex methods. However, conventional simple operators are not suitable for enhancing faded images because partial fading effect is appeared differently. Thus, this paper presents a color enhancement algorithm based on integrating correction coefficients for faded images. First, the proposed method adopts local process by using multi-scale average mask. The coefficients for each multi-scale average mask are obtained to apply the gray world algorithm. Then, integrating the coefficients with weights is performed to calculate correction ratio for red and blue channels in the gray world assumption. Finally, the enhanced image is obtained by applying the integrated coefficients to the gray world algorithm. In the experimental results, the proposed method reproduces better colors for both wholly and partially faded images compared with the previous methods.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2013

It is a challenging problem to most of the image processing when the light source is unknown. The color of the light source must be estimated in order to compensate color changes. To estimate the color of the light source, additional assumption is need, so that we assumed color distribution according to the light source. If the pixels, which do not satisfy the assumption, are used, the estimation fails to provide an accurate result. The most popular color distribution assumption is Grey-World Assumption (GWA); it is the assumption that the color in each scene, the surface reflectance averages to gray or achromatic color over the entire images. In this paper, we analyze the characteristics of the camera response function, and the effect of the Grey-World Assumption on the pixel value and chromaticity, based on the inherent characteristics of the light source. Besides, we propose a novel method that detects important pixels for the color estimation of the light source. In our method, we firstly proposed a method that gives weights to pixels satisfying the assumption. Then, we proposed a pixel detection method, which we modified max-RGB method, to apply on the weighted pixels. Maximum weighted pixels in the column direction and row direction in one channel are detected. The performance of our method is verified through demonstrations in several real scenes. Proposed method better accurately estimate the color of the light than previous methods.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.27-29
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a new method of automatic white balance which is one of the image signal processing techniques. Our method is conceptually based on gray world assumption. However, while previous methods generate linear results as multiplying pixel values by a gain, our method generates non-linear results using the feature of B-Spline curves. The two merits of deriving non-linear results are preventing AWB failure from transforming strong color of high level into wrong color and well preserving original contrast of an input image.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.25 no.8B
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• pp.1413-1423
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• 2000

Color distribution is changed according to the variation of illumination position and illumination color. Therefore, even if images are relevant each other, retrieval accuracy is degraded. In this paper, we propose the image retrieval method using color information excluded illumination component. The proposed dynamic range control method removes the shadow region generated by change of illumination position to increase the color discrimination power. To exclude the illuminant color, we use the diffuse reflection component of object and gray world assumption. The experimental results show that the color histogram method using color information excluded illuminant has higher retrieval accuracy than conventional color histogram using the color information of input image.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.68-68
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• 2001

본 논문에서는 단일 영상에 포함된 광원의 분광분포를 추정하는 광원추정 알고리즘을 제안한다. 제안된 광원 추정 방법은 두 단계로 이루어져 있다. 첫째, 변형된 회색계 가정(modified gray world assumption)을 이용하여 부분적으로 광원의 영향을 배제한 후 밝으면서도 무채색에 가까운 최대 무채색 영역을 찾아 그 영역의 표면 분광 반사율을 구한다. 이때 최대 무채색 영역의 표면 분광 반사율은 1269개의 Munsell 색 표본에 대하여 주성분 분석 방법을 이용하여 추정하였다. 둘째, 주어진 Munsell 색 표본과 대표 광원의 조합으로 반사광의 모집단을 만들었다. 다음 최대 무채색 영역의 각 화소와 반사광 모집단과의 색차를 비교하여 최대 무채색 영역과 색차가 가장 적은 반사광 표본을 선택하고 이를 최대 무채색 영역에 대한 반사광의 분광분포로 정의한다. 최종적으로 최저 무채색 영역의 반사광 분광분포를 해당하는 표면 분광반사율로 나누어줌으로써 영상에 포함된 광원의 분광분포를 추정한다. 제안한 알고리듬의 성능을 평가하기 위하여 유색 광원에 조명된 영상에 대한 광원 추정 실험을 하였으며 기존의 방법과 추정된 광원의 분광 분포 비교 및 색차 비교를 통해 그 타당성을 검증하였다.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.442-453
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• 2020

Underwater color images suffer from low visibility and color cast effects caused by light attenuation by water and floating particles. This study applied single image enhancement techniques to enhance the quality of underwater images and compared their performance with real underwater images taken in Korean waters. Dark channel prior (DCP), gradient transform, image fusion, and generative adversarial networks (GAN), such as cycleGAN and underwater GAN (UGAN), were considered for single image enhancement. Their performance was evaluated in terms of underwater image quality measure, underwater color image quality evaluation, gray-world assumption, and blur metric. The DCP saturated the underwater images to a specific greenish or bluish color tone and reduced the brightness of the background signal. The gradient transform method with two transmission maps were sensitive to the light source and highlighted the region exposed to light. Although image fusion enabled reasonable color correction, the object details were lost due to the last fusion step. CycleGAN corrected overall color tone relatively well but generated artifacts in the background. UGAN showed good visual quality and obtained the highest scores against all figures of merit (FOMs) by compensating for the colors and visibility compared to the other single enhancement methods.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.392-400
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• 2001

This paper proposes an illuminant estimation algorithm that estimates the spectral power distribution of an incident light source from a single image. The proposed illumination recovery procedure has two phases. First, the surface spectral reflectances are recovered in the maximum achromatic region (MAR) which is the most achromatic and highly bright region of an image after removing partially the effect of illumination using a modified gray world algorithm. Here, the surface reflectances of MAR are estimated using the principal component analysis method along with a set of given 1269 Munsell samples. Second, the Population of reflected lights is determined with 1269 Munsell samples and a set of illuminations then the spectral distribution of re(looted lights of MAR is selected from the spectral database. That is, color differences are compared between the reflected lights of the MAR and the spectral database, which is the set of reflected lights built by the given set of Munsell samples and illuminants. Then the closest colors from the spectral database are selected. Finally, the illuminant of an image can be calculated dividing the average spectral distributions of reflected lights of MAR by the average surface reflectances of the MAR. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithm, experiments with artificial scenes, which are exposed to chromatic illuminants, were performed and the spectral distribution of estimated illumination and color difference are compared with results of the conventional method.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.39-46
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• 2001

In this paper we propose a new method that can be estimation the spectral power distribution of the light source from three-band images. the light source is estimated by dividing the reflected spectral power distribution of the maximum achromatic region(L(λ)) by the corresponding surface reflectance(Ο(λ)). In order to obtain reflected spectral power distribution of the maximum achromatic region from three-bend images, a modified gray world assumption algorithm is adapted. And the maximum surface reflectance is estimated using the principal component analysis method along with achromatic population. The achromatic population is created from a set of given Munsell color chips whose chroma vector is less than threshold. Cumulative contribution ratio of principal components from the first to the third for classified achromatic population was about 99.75%. The reconstruction of illumination spectral power distribution by using achromatic population and three-band digital images captured under various light source was examined, and evaluated by RMSE between the original and reconstructed illumination spectral power distribution. This work was supported by grant No (2000-1-30200-005-3) from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science & Engineering Foundation.