Retinex-based image enhancement with particle swarm optimization and multi-objective function

Abstract

Multiscale retinex is one of the most popular image enhancement methods. However, its control parameters, such as Gaussian kernel sizes, gain, and offset, should be tuned carefully according to the image contents. In this letter, we propose a new method that optimizes the parameters using practical swarm optimization and multi-objective function. The method iteratively verifies the visual quality (i.e. brightness, contrast, and colorfulness) of the enhanced image using a multi-objective function while subtly adjusting the parameters. Experimental results shows that the proposed method achieves better image quality qualitatively and quantitatively compared with other image enhancement methods.