Image enhancement using modified histogram and log-exp transformation

Abstract

An effective method to enhance the contrast of digital images is proposed in this paper. A histogram function is developed to make the histogram curve smoother, which can be used to avoid the loss of information in the processed image. Besides the histogram function, an adaptive gamma correction for the histogram is proposed to stretch the brightness contrast. Moreover, the log-exp transformation strategy is presented to progressively increase the low intensity while suppressing the decrement of the high intensity. In order to further widen the dynamic range of the image, the nonlinear normalization transformation is put forward to make the output image more natural and clearer. In the experiment on non-uniform illumination images, the average contrast per pixel (CPP), root mean square (RMS), and discrete entropy (DE) metrics of the developed approach are shown to be superior to selected state-of-the-art methods.