Identifying scene illumination using genetic algorithms and neural networks

The scene illumination that is present when an image is captured plays a major role in the appearance of the colors of the objects in that image. This is because color is not a physical property of objects and therefore, it is not constant under most conditions, for example, changing scene illumination. We target skin color as the object of interest in an image. We used neural networks to learn and identify which of four different types of scene illuminations were present in a given scene. A real coded genetic algorithm was also used to shrink the size of the neural network input data, and to identify the areas of a scene that contain the most information about, and best represent the scene illuminant Once a scene illuminant can be identified, it can go a long way in helping to correct and normalize skin color in systems' that are sensitive to skin color changes, for example face detection and recognition.