Adaptive height-modified histogram equalization and chroma correction in YCbCr color space for fast backlight image compensation

Automatic exposure controls in commercially available cameras often encounter difficulties in capturing scenes with backlight luminance which dominates the entire image. An Adaptive Height-Modified Histogram Equalization (AHMHE) algorithm is proposed as a compensation technique for backlight images. It simultaneously enhances contrast in both the dark and the bright areas without creating regions of degraded local contrast. Moreover AHMHE is an adaptive algorithm: thus it requires minimal user input, and its reduced computational requirement makes it suitable for real-time application. In addition to AHMHE, a chroma correction technique was applied to chroma components in the YCbCr color space to produce more vivid color images. A series of subjective and index evaluations were conducted to measure the resultant image quality improvements by the AHMHE and the chroma correction algorithms.