This paper presents the development of a new algorithm for Gaussian based color image enhancement system. The algorithm has been designed into architecture suitable for FPGA ASIC implementation. The color image enhancement is achieved by first convolving an original image with a Gaussian kernel since Gaussian distribution is a point spread function which smoothes the image. Further, logarithm-domain processing and gain offset corrections are employed in order to enhance and translate pixels into the display range of 0 to 255. The proposed algorithm not only provides better dynamic range compression and color rendition effect but also achieves color constancy in an image. The design exploits high degrees of pipelining and parallel processing to achieve real time performance. The design has been realized by RTL compliant Verilog coding and fits into a single FPGA with a gate count utilization of 321,804. The proposed method is implemented using Xilinx Virtex-II Pro XC2VP40-7FF1148 FPGA device and is capable of processing high resolution color motion pictures of sizes of up to 1600×1200 pixels at the real time video rate of 116 frames per second. This shows that the proposed design would work for not only still images but also for high resolution video sequences.
The limitations mentioned earlier are overcome in the proposed method in an efficient way. To start with, the input image is convolved with @math Gaussian kernel in order to smooth the image. Further, the dynamic range of an image is compressed by replacing each pixel with its logarithm. In the proposed method, the image enhancement operations are arranged in an efficient way adding true color constancy at every step. It has less number of parameters to specify and provides true color fidelity. In addition, the proposed algorithm is computationally inexpensive. In the proposed scheme, an additional step is necessary to solve the gray world violation problem as is the case with the implementation reported in Ref. @cite_1 .
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A luminance based multi scale retinex (LB spl I.bar MSR) algorithm for the enhancement of darker images is proposed in this paper. The new technique consists only the addition of the convolution results of 3 different scales. In this way, the color noise in the shadow dark areas can be suppressed and the convolutions with different scales can be calculated simultaneously to save CPU time. Color saturation adjustment for producing more natural colors is implemented. Each spectral band can be adjusted based on the enhancement of the intensity of the band and by using a color saturation parameter. The color saturation degree can be automatically adjusted according to different types of images by compensating the original color saturation in each band. Luminance control is applied to prevent the unwanted luminance drop at the uniform luminance areas by automatically detecting the luminance drop and keeping the luminance up to certain level that is evaluated from the original image. Down-sized convolution is used for fast processing and then the result is re-sized back to the original size. Performance of the new enhancement algorithm is tested in various images captured at different lighting conditions. It is observed that the new technique outperforms the conventional MSR technique in terms of the quality of the enhanced images and computational speed.