True colour retrieval from multiple illuminant scene’s image

This paper presents an algorithm to retrieve the true colour of an image captured under multiple illuminant. The proposed method uses a histogram analysis and K-means++ clustering technique to split the input image into a number of segments. It then determines normalised average absolute difference (NAAD) for each resulting segment’s colour component. If the NAAD of the segment’s component is greater than an empirically determined threshold. It assumes that the segment does not represent a uniform colour area, hence the segment’s colour component is selected to be used for image colour constancy adjustment. The initial colour balancing factor for each chosen segment’s component is calculated using the Minkowski norm based on the principal that the average values of image colour components are achromatic. It finally calculates colour constancy adjustment factors for each image pixel by fusing the initial colour constancy factors of the chosen segments weighted by the normalised Euclidian distances of the pixel from the centroids of the selected segments. Experimental results using benchmark single and multiple illuminant image datasets, show that the proposed method’s images subjectively exhibit highest colour constancy in the presence of multiple illuminant and also when image contains uniform colour areas

Colour Constancy using Sub-blocks of the Image

Colour constancy is the ability to measure the colour of objects independent of the light source, while colour casting is the presence of unwanted colour in digital images. Colour casting significantly affects the performance of image processing algorithms such as image segmentation and object recognition. The presence of large uniform background within the image considerably deteriorates the performance of many state of the art colour constancy algorithms. This paper presents a colour constancy method using the sub-blocks of the image to alleviate the effect of large uniform colour area of the scene. The proposed method divides the input image into a number of non-overlapping blocks, and Average Absolute Difference (AAD) value of each block colour component is calculated. The blocks with AAD greater than threshold values, which are empirically determined for each colour component, are considered to have sufficient colour information. The selected blocks are then used to determine the scaling factors to achieve achromatic values for the input image colour components. Comparing the performance of the proposed technique with the state of the art methods using images from three datasets shows that the proposed method outperforms the state of the art techniques in the presence of large uniform colour patches

Color Constancy Algorithm for Mixed-illuminant Scene Images

The intrinsic properties of the ambient illuminant significantly alter the true colors of objects within an image. Most existing color constancy algorithms assume a uniformly lit scene across the image. The performance of these algorithms deteriorates considerably in the presence of mixed illuminants. Hence, a potential solution to this problem is the consideration of a combination of image regional color constancy weighing factors (CCWFs) in determining the CCWF for each pixel. This paper presents a color constancy algorithm for mixed-illuminant scene images. The proposed algorithm splits the input image into multiple segments and uses the normalized average absolute difference (NAAD) of each segment as a measure for determining whether the segment’s pixels contain reliable color constancy information. The Max-RGB principle is then used to calculate the initial weighting factors for each selected segment. The CCWF for each image pixel is then calculated by combining the weighting factors of the selected segments, which are adjusted by the normalized Euclidian distances of the pixel from the centers of the selected segments. Experimental results on images from five benchmark datasets show that the proposed algorithm subjectively outperforms the state-of-the-art techniques, while its objective performance is comparable to those of the state-of-the-art techniques