Digital Image

Processing
Colour Image Processing
Introduction
Today we’ll look at colour image processing,
covering:
◦ Colour fundamentals
◦ Colour models
 Colour Fundamentals
In 1666 Sir Isaac Newton discovered that
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

when a beam of sunlight passes through a

glass prism, the emerging beam is split into a
spectrum of colours
Colour Fundamentals (cont…)
The colours that humans and most animals
perceive in an object are determined by the
nature of the light reflected from the object
For example, green
objects reflect light
with wave lengths
primarily in the range Wh
ite L
ight

of 500 – 570 nm while Colours

Absorbed
absorbing most of the Light
Green
energy at other
wavelengths
 Colour Fundamentals (cont…)
Chromatic light spans the electromagnetic
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

spectrum from approximately 400 to 700 nm

As we mentioned before human colour vision
is achieved through 6 to 7 million cones in
each eye
Colour Fundamentals (cont…)
Approximately 66% of these cones are
sensitive to red light, 33% to green light and
6% to blue light
Absorption curves for the different cones have
been determined experimentally
Strangely these do not match the CIE
standards for red (700nm), green (546.1nm)
and blue (435.8nm) light as the standards
were developed before the experiments!
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Colour Fundamentals (cont…)

Colour Fundamentals (cont…)
3 basic qualities are used to describe the
quality of a chromatic light source:
◦ Radiance: the total amount of energy that flows
from the light source (measured in watts)
◦ Luminance: the amount of energy an observer
perceives from the light source (measured in
lumens)
 Note we can have high radiance, but low luminance
◦ Brightness: a subjective (practically
unmeasurable) notion that embodies the intensity
of light
We’ll return to these later on
CIE Chromacity Diagram
Specifying colours systematically can be
achieved using the CIE chromacity diagram
On this diagram the x-axis represents the
proportion of red and the y-axis represents
the proportion of red used
The proportion of blue used in a colour is
calculated as:
z = 1 – (x + y)
 CIE Chromacity Diagram
(cont…)
Green: 62% green,
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

25% red and 13%

blue
Red: 32% green, 67%
red and 1% blue
CIE Chromacity Diagram
(cont…)
Any colour located on the boundary of the
chromacity chart is fully saturated
The point of equal energy has equal amounts
of each colour and is the CIE standard for pure
white
Any straight line joining two points in the
diagram defines all of the different colours
that can be obtained by combining these two
colours additively
This can be easily extended to three points
 CIE Chromacity Diagram
(cont…)
This means the entire
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

colour range cannot

be displayed based
on any three colours
The triangle shows
the typical colour
gamut produced by
RGB monitors
The strange shape is
the gamut achieved
by high quality colour
printers
Colour Models
From the previous discussion it should be
obvious that there are different ways to model
colour
We will consider two very popular models
used in colour image processing:
◦ RGB (Red Green Blue)
◦ HIS (Hue Saturation Intensity)
RGB
In the RGB model each colour appears in its
primary spectral components of red, green and
blue
The model is based on a Cartesian coordinate
system
◦ RGB values are at 3 corners
◦ Cyan magenta and yellow are at three other corners
◦ Black is at the origin
◦ White is the corner furthest from the origin
◦ Different colours are points on or inside the cube
represented by RGB vectors
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

RGB (cont…)
RGB (cont…)
Images represented in the RGB colour model
consist of three component images – one for
each primary colour
When fed into a monitor these images are
combined to create a composite colour image
The number of bits used to represent each
pixel is referred to as the colour depth
A 24-bit image is often referred to as a full-
colour image as it allows = 16,777,216
colours
2 
3
8
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

RGB (cont…)
The HSI Colour Model
RGB is useful for hardware implementations
and is serendipitously related to the way in
which the human visual system works
However, RGB is not a particularly intuitive
way in which to describe colours
Rather when people describe colours they
tend to use hue, saturation and brightness
RGB is great for colour generation, but HSI is
great for colour description
The HSI Colour Model (cont…)
The HSI model uses three measures to
describe colours:
◦ Hue: A colour attribute that describes a pure
colour (pure yellow, orange or red)
◦ Saturation: Gives a measure of how much a
pure colour is diluted with white light
◦ Intensity: Brightness is nearly impossible to
measure because it is so subjective. Instead we
use intensity. Intensity is the same achromatic
notion that we have seen in grey level images
HSI, Intensity & RGB
Intensity can be extracted from RGB images –
which is not surprising if we stop to think
about it
Remember the diagonal on the RGB colour
cube that we saw previously ran from black to
white
Now consider if we stand this cube on the
black vertex and position the white vertex
directly above it
 HSI, Intensity & RGB
(cont…)
Now the intensity component
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

of any colour can be

determined by passing a
plane perpendicular to
the intenisty axis and
containing the colour
point
The intersection of the plane
with the intensity axis gives us the intensity
component of the colour
 HSI, Hue & RGB
In a similar way we can extract the hue from
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

the RGB colour cube

Consider a plane defined by
the three points cyan, black
and white
All points contained in
this plane must have the
same hue (cyan) as black
and white cannot contribute
hue information to a colour
 The HSI Colour Model
Consider if we look straight down at the RGB cube
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

as it was arranged previously

We would see a hexagonal
shape with each primary
colour separated by 120°
and secondary colors at 60°
from the primaries. So the
HSI model is composed of a
vertical intensity axis and the locus
of colour points that lie on planes
perpendicular to that axis
 The HSI Colour Model
(cont…)
To the right we see a hexagonal
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

shape and an arbitrary colour

point
◦ The hue is determined by an
angle from a reference point,
usually red
◦ The saturation is the distance from the origin
to the point
◦ The intensity is determined by how far up the
vertical intenisty axis this hexagonal plane
sits (not apparent from this diagram
 The HSI Colour Model
(cont…)
Because the only important things are the
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

angle and the length of the saturation

vector this plane is also often represented
as a circle or a triangle
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

HSI Model Examples

Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

HSI Model Examples

 Converting From RGB To
HSI
Given a colour as R, G, and B its H, S, and I
values are calculated as follows:
 
2 

 if B G  1
R  G R  B 
H  1
 cos  1 
360   if B  G  
R  G2  R  BG  B 2 
 

3
S 1 min R,G,B I  13 R  G  B
R  G  B 


 Converting From HSI To
RGB
Given a colour as H, S, and I it’s R, G, and B
values are calculated as follows:
◦ RG sector (0 <= H < 120°)

 S cos H 
R I
1  G 3I  R  B B I 1 S 
 cos60  H 
◦ GB sector (120° <= H < 240°)

 
  S cosH  120
R I 1 S  G I
1  B 3I  R  G
 cosH  60 
 Converting From HSI To RGB
(cont…)
◦ BR sector (240° <= H <= 360°)
 S cosH  240
R 3I  G  B G I 1 S  B I
1 
 cosH  180 

 

Manipulating Images In The
HSI Model
In order to manipulate an image under the HIS
model we:
◦ First convert it from RGB to HIS
◦ Perform our manipulations under HSI
◦ Finally convert the image back from HSI to RGB

RGB
RGB RGB
RGB
HSI
HSI Image
Image
Image
Image Image
Image

Manipulations
Pseudocolour Image
Processing
Pseudocolour (also called false
colour) image processing consists of
assigning colours to grey values
based on a specific criterion
The principle use of pseudocolour
image processing is for human
visualisation
◦ Humans can discern between
thousands of colour shades and
intensities, compared to only about two
dozen or so shades of grey