Towards Automatic Image Enhancement with Genetic Programming and Machine Learning

This article belongs to the Special Issue Genetic Programming, Theory, Methods and Applications[Abstract] Image Enhancement (IE) is an image processing procedure in which the image’s original information is improved, highlighting specific features to ease post-processing analyses by a human or machine. State-of-the-art image enhancement pipelines apply solutions to fixed and static constraints to solve specific issues in isolation. In this work, an IE system for image marketing is proposed, more precisely, real estate marketing, where the objective is to enhance the commercial appeal of the images, while maintaining a level of realism and similarity with the original image. This work proposes a generic image enhancement pipeline that combines state-of-the-art image processing filters, Machine Learning methods, and Evolutionary approaches, such as Genetic Programming (GP), to create a dynamic framework for Image Enhancement. The GP-based system is trained to optimize 4 metrics: Neural Image Assessment (NIMA) technical and BRISQUE, which evaluate the technical quality of the images; and NIMA aesthetics and PhotoILike, that evaluate the commercial attractiveness. It is shown that the GP model was able to find the best image quality enhancement (0.97 NIMA Aesthetics), while maintaining a high level of similarity with the original images (Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) of 0.88). The framework has better performance according to the image quality metrics than the off-the-shelf image enhancement tool and the framework’s isolated parts.This research was supported by Centro de Investigación de Galicia “CITIC”, funded by Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund-Galicia 2014-2020 Program), by grant ED431G 2019/01. This work is also supported by Ministry of Science and Innovation project Society Challenges (Ref. PID2020-118362RB-I00)Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/0