Brightness and Contrast Enhancement Method for Color Images via Pairing Adaptive Gamma Correction and Histogram Equalization

For enhanced adaptability to poor light enhancement whilst achieving high image contrast, a new method for color image correction based on the advantages of non-linear function in grey transformation and histogram equalization techniques is proposed in this work. Firstly, the original red, green and blue (RGB) image is converted into the HSV color space, and the V channel is used for enhancement. An adaptive gamma generator is proposed to adaptively calculate gamma parameters in accordance with dark, medium, or bright image conditions. The computed gamma parameters are used to propose a cumulative distribution function that produces an optimized curve for illumination values. Next, a second modified equalization is performed to evenly correct the offset of the illumination curve values on the basis of the equal probability of the available values only. Finally, the processed V channel replaces the original V channel, and the new HSV model returns to the RGB color space. Experiments show that the proposed method can significantly improve the low contrast and poor illumination of the color image whilst preserving the color and details of the original image. Results from benchmark data sets and measurements indicate that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods.