Local Histogram Equalization using Illumination Information

Local histogram equalization is one of the most popular ways of enhancing the local brightness features of an input image. However, local histogram equalization reveals some problems. First, undesired artifacts are produced by over-enhancing the local features. Second, the enhancement of local features does not always result in global contrast enhancement. To cope with these problems, we propose an illumination driven local histogram equalization method. First, to estimate the illumination information, the proposed method combines the input image and the blurred image produced through the process of the down-sampling and the up-sampling. Next, the proposed method adaptively adjusts the mapping function estimated by the local histogram equalization using the information of the illumination. As a result, the proposed illumination information driven local histogram equalization method simultaneously enhances the global and the local contrast levels while preventing any local artifacts. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional methods on objective and subjective criteria.