Digital Image Processing

Image enhancement
Principle Objective of Enhancement
● Process an image so that the result will be more suitable than the original image for a specific
application.

● „ Techniques are problem oriented.

● „ A method which is quite useful for enhancing an image may not necessarily be the best
approach for enhancing another images

● „ No general theory on image enhancement exists

Processing Domain
● Spatial Domain (image plane):
Techniques are based on direct manipulation of pixels in an image.

❖ „ Gray level transformations.

❖ „ Histogram processing.
❖ „ Arithmetic/Logic operations.
❖ „ Filtration techniques.

● „ Frequency Domain :
„ Techniques are based on modifying the Fourier transform of an image.
Spatial Domain

where
„„ - f(x,y)f(x,y) is the input image
„„ - g(x,y)g(x,y) is the processed
image
„„ - T is an operator on f defined over
some neighborhood of (x,y)(x,y)
Spatial Domain
● Neighborhood of a point (x,y) can be defined by
using a square/rectangular (common used) or
circular subimage area centered at (x,y)
● „ The center of the sub-image is moved from
pixel to pixel starting at the top of the corner
Point Processing
● Neighborhood = 1x1 pixel
● g depends on only the value of f at (x,y)
● T = gray level (or intensity or mapping) transformation function
○ s = T(r)
● Where
○ r = gray level of f(x,y)
○ s = gray level of g(x,y)
Contrast Stretching
● Produce higher contrast than the
original by„:

○ darkening the levels below k in the

original image

○ „ Brightening the levels above k in

the original image
Thresholding
● Produce a two-level (binary)
image
Intensity Transformation Functions
❏ Thresholding
❏ Log transformation
❏ Power-law (Gamma correction)
❏ Piecewise-linear transformation
❏ Histogram processing
Image Negatives
Example of negative Image
Log Transformations
Example of Logarithm Image
Power-Law Transformations
Power-Law Transformations
Power-Law Transformations
● MRI example
● The picture is dark
● When the γ is reduced too much,

the image begins to reduce contrast

to the point where the image

started to have very slight “wash-

out” look, especially in the

background
Another Examplr
Piecewise-Linear Transformation Functions
● Advantage:
○ „ Allow more control on the complexity of T(r).
● „ Disadvantage:
○ „ Their specification requires considerably more user input
● „ Contrast stretching.
● „ Gray-level slicing.
● „ Bit-plane slicing.
Contrast Stretching
Gray-level slicing
Gray-level slicing
Bit-plane slicing
❏ Highlighting the contribution
made to total image
appearance by specific bits
❏ „ Suppose each pixel is
represented by 8 bits
❏ „ Higher-order bits contain
the majority of the visually
significant data
❏ „ Useful for analyzing the
relative importance played
by each bit of the image
Bit-plane slicing
● The (binary) image for bit-plane 7 can be
obtained by processing the input image with
a thresholding gray-level transformation.

❏ „ Map all levels between 0 and 127 to 0

❏ „ Map all levels between 129 and 255
to 255
Bit-plane slicing
Histogram
Histogram
Histogram
❏ Used effectively for image enhancement

❏ Information inherent in histograms also is useful in image compression and

segmentation

❏ Data-dependent pixel-based image enhancement method.

Histogram
Histogram
Histogram equalization
● Spreading out the intensities in an image to improve dark or washed out images
● Output images have uniform intensity distribution
Histogram Equalization Implementation
1. Obtain the histogram of the input image.

2. For each input gray level k, compute the cumulative sum.

3. For each gray level k, scale the sum by (max gray level)/(number of pixels).

4. Discretize the result obtained in 3.

5. Replace each gray level k in the input image by the corresponding level

obtained in 4.
Histogram Equalization Implementation
Histogram Equalization Implementation
Color Image Histograms
Two types:

1. Intensity histogram:

● Convert color image to grayscale

● Display histogram of grayscale

2. Individual Color Channel Histograms:

● histograms (R,G,B)
Enhancement using Arithmetic/Logic Operations
● Arithmetic/Logic operations are performed on pixel by pixel basis between two
or more images
● except NOT operation which perform only on a single image
● Logic operation is performed on gray level images, the pixel values are
processed as binary numbers
● NOT operation = negative transformation
Example of AND Operation
Example of OR Operation
Image Subtraction
A A
g(x,y) = f(x,y) – h(x,y)
● enhancement of the differences between
images
● Image similarity
● We may have to adjust the grayscale of the
subtracted image to be [0, 255] (if 8-bit is used)
● Subtraction is also used in segmentation of
moving pictures to track the changes.
● after subtract the sequenced images, what is left
should be the moving elements in the image,
plus noise
●

Histogram
A-B Equalization of A-B
Image Averaging
Consider a noisy image modeled as:
g(x,y) = f(x,y) + η(x,y)
Where f(x,y) is the original image, and η(x,y) is a noise process „
Objective: to reduce the noise content by averaging a set of noisy images
„ Define an image formed by averaging K different noisy images:

expected value of g (output after averaging) = original image f(x,y)

Image Averaging
Spatial Filtering
● Use filter (can also be called as mask/kernel/template or window) „
● The values in a filter subimage are referred to as coefficients,
rather than pixel.
● „ Our focus will be on masks of odd sizes, e.g. 3x3, 5x5,…
● simply move the filter mask from point to point in an image.
● at each point (x,y), the response of the filter at that point is
calculated using a predefined relationship.
Smoothing Spatial Filters
● „ output is simply the average of the pixels contained in the neighborhood of the
filter mask. „

● called averaging filters or lowpass filters. „

● sharp details are lost.

Smoothing Spatial Filters
Smoothing Spatial Filters
● reduce the "sharp" transitions in gray levels.

● sharp transitions
○ random noise in the image
○ edges of objects in the image

● thus, smoothing can reduce noises (desirable) and blur edges (may be
undesirable)
Smoothing Spatial Filters
Smoothing Spatial Filters: Example
Order-Statistics Filters (Nonlinear Filters)
❏ Nonlinear spatial filters whose response is based on ordering (ranking) the pixels
contained in the filter mask and then replacing the value of the center pixel with the
result of the ranking operation

example

❏ median filter : R = median{zk |k = 1,2,…,n x n}

❏ max filter : R = max{zk |k = 1,2,…,n x n}
❏ min filter : R = min{zk |k = 1,2,…,n x n}

note: n x n is the size of the mask

Order-Statistics Filters (Nonlinear Filters)
❏ popular for certain types of random noise
❏ impulse noise impulse noise > salt an salt and d pepper noise pepper noise
❏ they provide excellent provide excellent noise-reduction capabilities, with
considering less blurring than linear filters of similar size.
❏ forces the points with distinct gray levels to be more like their neighbors.
Order-Statistics Filters (Nonlinear Filters)

Nonlinear filters
Linear filters
Order-Statistics Filters (Nonlinear Filters)
Sharpening Spatial Filters
❏ to highlight fine detail in an image
❏ or to enhance detail that has been blurred - either in error or as an effect of a method of
image acquisition.
❏ the sharpening must be accomplished by spatial spatial differentiation.
❏ In contrast to averaging which is similar to integration
Sharpening Spatial Filters
❏ First-order derivative (1D)
❏ a basic definition of the first-order derivative of a one-dimensional function f(x) is
the difference

❏ Second-order derivative (1D)

❏ similarly, we define the second-order derivative of a one-dimensional function f(x)
is the difference
Edges in digital images often
are ramp-like transitions in
intensity, in which case
the first derivative of the image
would result in thick edges
because the derivative
is nonzero along a ramp. On
the other hand, the second
derivative would produce a
double edge one pixel thick,
separated by zeros
First and Second-order derivative of f(x,y) (2D)
❏ when we consider an image function of two variables, f(x,y), at which time we will
dealing with partial derivatives along the two spatial axes.
Discrete Form of Laplacian
Laplacian mask implemented an extension of diagonal
neighbors
Other implementation of Laplacian masks
Laplacian Operator
❏ Isotropic filters: response is independent of direction (rotation-invariant).
❏ The simplest isotropic derivative operator is the Laplacian

To get a sharp image:

❏ easily by adding the original and Laplacian image. „ be careful with the Laplacian filter
used
Example
a). image of the North pole of the moon

b). Laplacian-filtered image with

c) Laplacian image scaled for display

purposes

d). image enhanced by subtraction with

original image
Mask of Laplacian + addition
❏ to simply the computation, we can create a mask which do both operations,
Laplacian Filter and Addition the original image.
Mask of Laplacian + addition
Mask of Laplacian + addition
Unsharp masking
1. Blur the original image.
2. Subtract the blurred image from the original (the resulting difference is called
the mask.)
3. Add the mask to the original.
High-boost filtering

❏ generalized form of Unsharp masking

❏ A≥1
High-boost filtering

if we use Laplacian filter to create sharpen image fs(x,y) with addition of original image
High-boost Masks

A≥1

if A = 1, it becomes “standard” Laplacian sharpening

Example
Use of First Derivatives for Enhancement-The Gradient
❏ First derivatives in image processing are implemented using the magnitude of
the gradient.
Magnitude of the gradient.

commonly approx:
Gradient Mask
❏ Sobel operators, 3x3
❏ An approximation using absolute values
❏ the weight value 2 is to achieve smoothing by giving more important to the center point

the summation of coefficients in all masks equals 0, indicating that they would give a
response of 0 in an area of constant gray level.
Example
Example of Combining Spatial Enhancement Methods
❏ want to sharpen the original
image and bring out more
skeletal detail.

❏ problems: narrow dynamic

range of gray level and high
noise content makes the
image difficult to enhance
Example of Combining Spatial Enhancement Methods
solve :

1. Laplacian to highlight fine detail

2. gradient to enhance prominent edges

3. gray-level transformation to increase the dynamic range of gray levels