1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for correcting a preferred color, which is capable of correcting a color of an input image to a color preferred by a person so as to improve image quality, and a liquid crystal display device using the same.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
High resolution and high definition of an image display device has been realized according to user's requirements. Most users determine the definition of an image on the basis of a preferred color displayed on a display device, such as a skin color, a green color or a blue color. This is because the preferred color is stored in a color storage space of a person so as to have a significant influence on color perception. Accordingly, the image display device uses a preferred color correcting method for detecting a preferred-color area from an input image and converting the detected preferred-color area into a color preferred by the user, in order to display a high-definition image preferred by a user. In the method for correcting the preferred color, the preferred-color area should be accurately detected such that other color areas are not included, and should be corrected to the color preferred by the person.
As a conventional preferred color correcting method, an area correcting method for deciding an input color area and a preferred-color area in an elliptical shape in a u′v′ chromaticity coordinate and mapping the input color area to the preferred-color area (“Preferred Skin Color Reproduction Based on Adaptive Affine Transform”, IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, Vol. 51, No. 1, pp 191-197, 2005) and a point correcting method for setting one point of a color space as a target and positioning an input color to be close to the target (“Skin color reproduction algorithm for portrait images shown on the mobile display”, SPIE vol. 6058, pp 1-8) were reported.
However, the area correcting method is disadvantageous in that contour noise occurs and luminance deteriorates because brightness is not corrected. In addition, the point correcting method is disadvantageous in that preferred color correction capability deteriorates because the contents of the input image are not considered.