Color Image Processing

Jen-Chang Liu, Spring 2006

 For a long time I limited myself to one color
– as a form of discipline.
 Pablo Picasso

 It is only after years of preparation that the

young artist should touch color – not color
used descriptively, that is, but as a means of
personal expression.
 Henri Matisse
 Preview
 Why use color in image processing?
 Color is a powerful descriptor

 Object identification and extraction

 eg. Face detection using skin colors

 Humans can discern thousands of color shades and

intensities
 c.f. Human discern only two dozen shades of grays
 Preview (cont.)
 Two category of color image processing
 Full color processing
 Images are acquired from full-color sensor or
equipments
 Pseudo-color processing
 In the past decade, color sensors and processing
hardware are not available
 Colors are assigned to a range of monochrome
intensities
 Outline
 Color fundamentals
 Color models
 Pseudo-color image processing
 Basics of full-color image processing
 Color transformations
 Smoothing and sharpening
 Color fundamentals
 Physical phenomenon
 Physical nature of color is known

 Psysio-psychological phenomenon
 How human brain perceive and interpret color?
 Color fundamentals (cont.)
 1666, Isaac Newton 三稜鏡
 Visible light
 Chromatic light span the electromagnetic
spectrum (EM) from 400 to 700 nm
 Color fundamentals (cont.)
 The color that human perceive in an object
= the light reflected from the object

scene
Illumination source

reflection
eye
 Physical quantities to describe
a chromatic light source
 Radiance: total amount of energy that flow from
the light source, measured in watts (W)
 Luminance: amount of energy an observer
perceives from a light source, measured in
lumens (lm 流明 )
 Far infrared light: high radiance, but 0 luminance
 Brightness: subjective descriptor that is hard to
measure, similar to the achromatic notion of
intensity
 How human eyes sense light?
 6~7M Cones are the sensors in the eye
 3 principal sensing categories in eyes
 Red light 65%, green light 33%, and blue
light 2%
 Primary and secondary colors
 In 1931, CIE(International Commission on
Illumination) defines specific wavelength
values to the primary colors
 B = 435.8 nm, G = 546.1 nm, R = 700 nm
 However, we know that no single color may be
called red, green, or blue
 Secondary colors: G+B=Cyan, R+G=Yellow,
R+B=Magenta
 Primary colors of light v.s.
primary colors of pigments
 Primary color of pigments
 Color that subtracts or absorbs a primary color
of light and reflects or transmits the other two

Color of light: R G B

Color of pigments: absorb R absorb G absorb B

Cyan Magenta Yellow
 Application of additive nature
of light colors
 Color TV
 CIE XYZ model
 RGB -> CIE XYZ model
 X   0.431 0.342 0.178  R 
 Y   0.222 0.707 0.071 G 
    
 Z  0.020 0.130 0.939  B 
 Normalized tristimulus values
X Y Z
x y z
X Y  Z X Y  Z X Y  Z

=> x+y+z=1. Thus, x, y (chromaticity coordinate) is

enough to describe all colors
色度圖
By additivity of colors:
Any color inside the
triangle can be produced
by combinations of the
three initial colors

RGB gamut of
monitors
Color gamut of
printers
 Outline
 Color fundamentals
 Color models
 Pseudo-color image processing
 Basics of full-color image processing
 Color transformations
 Smoothing and sharpening
 Color models
 Color model, color space, color system
 Specify colors in a standard way
 A coordinate system that each color is
represented by a single point

 RGB model
Suitable for hardware or
 CYM model applications
 CYMK model
 HSI model - match the human description
RGB color model
 Pixel depth
 Pixel depth: the number of bits used to
represent each pixel in RGB space
 Full-color image: 24-bit RGB color image
 (R, G, B) = (8 bits, 8 bits, 8 bits)
 Safe RGB colors
 Subset of colors is enough for some
application
 Safe RGB colors (safe Web colors, safe
browser colors)

(6)3 = 216
 Safe RGB color (cont.)

Full color cube Safe color cube

 CMY model (+Black = CMYK)
 CMY: secondary colors of light, or primary
colors of pigments
 Used to generate hardcopy output

 C  1  R 
 M   1  G 
    
 Y  1  B 
 HSI color model
 Will you describe a color using its R, G, B
components?
 Human describe a color by its hue,
saturation, and brightness
 Hue 色度 : color attribute
 Saturation: purity of color (white->0, primary
color->1)
 Brightness: achromatic notion of intensity
 HSI color model (cont.)
 RGB -> HSI model Colors on this triangle
Have the same hue
Intensity
line
saturation
HSI model: hue and saturation
HSI model
RGB to HSI
HSI to RGB
HSI to RGB
HSI to RGB
 HSI component images

R,G,B Hue

intensity
saturation
 Outline
 Color fundamentals
 Color models
 Pseudo-color image processing
 Basics of full-color image processing
 Color transformations
 Smoothing and sharpening
 Pseudo-color image
processing

 Assign colors to gray values based on a

specified criterion
 For human visualization and interpretation
of gray-scale events
 Intensity slicing
 Gray level to color transformations
 Intensity slicing
 3-D view of intensity image

Color 1

Color 2

Image plane
 Intensity slicing (cont.)
 Alternative representation of intensity slicing
 Intensity slicing (cont.)
 More slicing plane, more colors
 Application 1

Radiation test pattern 8 color regions

* See the gradual gray-level changes
 Application 2

X-ray image of a weld

焊接物
Application 3

Rainfall statistics
 Gray level to color
transformation
 Intensity slicing: piecewise linear
transformation

 General Gray level to color transformation

Gray level to color
transformation
Application 1
Combine several monochrome
images
Example: multi-spectral images
Washington D.C.

R G

Near
Infrared
B (sensitive
to biomass)

R+G+B near-infrared+G+B
 Outline
 Color fundamentals
 Color models
 Pseudo-color image processing
 Basics of full-color image processing
 Color transformations
 Smoothing and sharpening
 Color pixel
 A pixel at (x,y) is a vector in the color space
 RGB color space

 R ( x, y ) 

c( x, y )  G ( x, y ) 
 B ( x, y ) 

c.f. gray-scale image

f(x,y) = I(x,y)
Example: spatial mask
 How to deal with color vector?
 Per-color-component processing
 Process each color component

 Vector-based processing
 Process the color vector of each pixel

 When can the above methods be equivalent?

 Process can be applied to both scalars and

vectors
 Operation on each component of a vector

must be independent of the other component

 Two spatial processing
categories
 Similar to gray scale processing studied
before, we have to major categories
 Pixel-wise processing
 Neighborhood processing
Outline
 Color fundamentals
 Color models
 Pseudo-color image processing
 Basics of full-color image processing
 Color transformations
 Smoothing and sharpening
 Color transformation
 Similar to gray scale transformation
 g(x,y)=T[f(x,y)]
 Color transformation
si  Ti (r1 , r2 ,..., rn ) , i  1,2,..., n
g(x,y) f(x,y)
s1 T1 f1
s2 T2 f2
… … …
sn Tn fn
 Use which color model in color
transformation?
 RGB CMY(K)  HSI
 Theoretically, any transformation can be
performed in any color model
 Practically, some operations are better
suited to specific color model
 Example: modify intensity of a
color image
 Example: g(x,y)=k f(x,y), 0<k<1
 HSI color space
 Intensity: s = k r
3 3
 Note: transform to HSI requires complex

operations
 RGB color space
 For each R,G,B component: s = k r
i i
 CMY color space
 For each C,M,Y component:

 s = k r +(1-k)
i i
I H,S
Problem of using Hue
component

dis-continuous

Un-defined
over gray
axis
 Implementation of color
slicing
 Recall the pseudo-color intensity slicing

1-D intensity
 Implementation of color
slicing
 How to take a region of colors of interest?

prototype color prototype color

Sphere region Cube region

Application

cube sphere
 Outline
 Color fundamentals
 Color models
 Pseudo-color image processing
 Basics of full-color image processing
 Color transformations
 Smoothing and sharpening
 Color image smoothing
 Neighborhood processing
Color image smoothing:
averaging mask

1
c( x , y ) 
K
 c( x , y )
( x , y )S xy
vector processing

Neighborhood
Centered at (x,y)
1 
  R ( x, y ) 
 K ( x , y )S xy 
1 
c( x, y )    G ( x, y ) 
per-component processing
 K ( x , y )S xy 
1 
 K  B ( x, y ) 
 ( x , y )S xy 
original R

G G
 Example: 5x5 smoothing mask
Smooth I
RGB model in HSI model difference