A software-supported approach for improving visibility of backlight images using image threshold-based adaptive gamma correction

Abstract

The backlight images have complex structure that makes them different from other types of images. In such images, light source is at the background of the objects; as a result, the object (foreground) becomes darker. We observed that the conventional contrast enhancement methods do not work well for the enhancement of backlight images as the enhancement takes place at equal level for background as well as foreground. To solve this problem, we have developed the simplest method. The proposed method is best suited for low-contrast images having uniform background. The proposed method initially applies image threshold operation to extract the background of the image, then it applies contrast enhancement method on the image, and at last the extracted background is merged in the processed image. We have also developed a tool that implements our method. Experimental results show that the proposed method is able to enhance visibility of low-contrast backlight images without distorting its color details.