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Image Enhancement
(Point Processing)
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Contents
In this lecture we will look at image
enhancement point processing techniques:
– What is point processing?
– Negative images
– Thresholding
– Logarithmic transformation
– Power law transforms
– Grey level slicing
– Bit plane slicing
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Basic Spatial Domain Image
28 Enhancement
Most spatial domain enhancement operations
can be reduced to the form
Origin x
g (x, y) = T[ f (x, y)]
where f (x, y) is the
input image, g (x, y) is
the processed image (x, y)
and T is some
operator defined over
some neighbourhood
of (x, y) y Image f (x, y)
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Point Processing
The simplest spatial domain operations
occur when the neighbourhood is simply the
pixel itself
In this case T is referred to as a grey level
transformation function or a point processing
operation
Point processing operations take the form
s=T(r)
where s refers to the processed image pixel
value and r refers to the original image pixel
value
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Point Processing Example:
28 Negative Images
Negative images are useful for enhancing
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
white or grey detail embedded in dark
regions of an image
– Note how much clearer the tissue is in the
negative image of the mammogram below
Original Negative
s = 1.0 - r
Image Image
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Point Processing Example:
28 Negative Images (cont…)
Original Image Enhanced Image x
x
y Image f (x, y) y Image f (x, y)
s = intensitymax - r
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Point Processing Example:
28 Thresholding
Thresholding transformations are particularly
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
useful for segmentation in which we want to
isolate an object of interest from a
background
1.0 r > threshold
s=
0.0 r <= threshold
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Point Processing Example:
28 Thresholding (cont…)
Original Image Enhanced Image x
x
y Image f (x, y) y Image f (x, y)
1.0 r > threshold
s=
0.0 r <= threshold
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Basic Grey Level Transformations
There are many different kinds of grey level
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
transformations
Three of the most
common are shown
here
– Linear
• Negative/Identity
– Logarithmic
• Log/Inverse log
– Power law
• nth power/nth root
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Logarithmic Transformations
The general form of the log transformation is
s = c * log(1 + r)
The log transformation maps a narrow range
of low input grey level values into a wider
range of output values
The inverse log transformation performs the
opposite transformation
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Logarithmic Transformations (cont…)
Log functions are particularly useful when
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
the input grey level values may have an
extremely large range of values
In the following example the Fourier
transform of an image is put through a log
transform to reveal more detail
s = log(1 + r)
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Logarithmic Transformations (cont…)
Original Image Enhanced Image x
x
y Image f (x, y) y Image f (x, y)
s = log(1 + r)
We usually set c to 1
Grey levels must be in the range [0.0, 1.0]
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Power Law Transformations
Power law transformations have the following
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
form
s=c*rγ
Map a narrow range
of dark input values
into a wider range of
output values or vice
versa
Varying γ gives a whole
family of curves
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Power Law Transformations (cont…)
Original Image Enhanced Image x
x
y Image f (x, y) y Image f (x, y)
s=rγ
We usually set c to 1
Grey levels must be in the range [0.0, 1.0]
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Power Law Example
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Power Law Example (cont…)
γ = 0.6
1
Transformed Intensities
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Old Intensities
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Power Law Example (cont…)
γ = 0.4
1
0.9
Transformed Intensities
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Original Intensities
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Power Law Example (cont…)
γ = 0.3
1
0.9
Transformed Intensities
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Original Intensities
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Power Law Example (cont…)
The images to the
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
right show a
s = r 0.6
magnetic resonance
(MR) image of a
fractured human
s = r 0.4
spine
Different curves
highlight different
detail
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Power Law Example
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Power Law Example (cont…)
γ = 5.0
1
0.9
Transformed Intensities
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Original Intensities
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Power Law Transformations (cont…)
An aerial photo
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
of a runway is
shown s = r 3.0
This time
power law
s = r 4.0
transforms are
used to darken
the image
Different curves
highlight
different detail
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Gamma Correction
Many of you might be familiar with gamma
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
correction of computer monitors
Problem is that
display devices do
not respond linearly
to different
intensities
Can be corrected
using a log
transform
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Piecewise Linear Transformation
28 Functions
Rather than using a well defined mathematical
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
function we can use arbitrary user-defined
transforms
The images below show a contrast stretching
linear transform to add contrast to a poor
quality image
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Gray Level Slicing
Highlights a specific range of grey levels
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
– Similar to thresholding
– Other levels can be
suppressed or maintained
– Useful for highlighting features
in an image
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Bit Plane Slicing
Often by isolating particular bits of the pixel
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
values in an image we can highlight
interesting aspects of that image
– Higher-order bits usually contain most of the
significant visual information
– Lower-order bits contain
subtle details
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Bit Plane Slicing (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
[10000000] [01000000]
[00100000] [00001000]
[00000100] [00000001]
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Summary
We have looked at different kinds of point
processing image enhancement
Next time we will start to look at
neighbourhood operations – in particular
filtering and convolution
