Automatic image enhancement by learning adaptive patch selection

Today, digital cameras are widely used in taking photos. However, some photos lack detail and need enhancement. Many existing image enhancement algorithms are patch based and the patch size is always fixed throughout the image. Users must tune the patch size to obtain the appropriate enhancement. In this study,we propose an automatic image enhancement method based on adaptive patch selection using both dark and bright channels. The double channels enhance images with various exposure problems. The patch size used for channel extraction is selected automatically by thresholding a contrast feature, which is learned systematically from a set of natural images crawled from the web. Our proposed method can automatically enhance foggy or under-exposed/backlit images without any user interaction. Experimental results demonstrate that our method can provide a significant improvement in existing patch-based image enhancement algorithms.