MODULE 4

6 Color Image Processing

It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should
touch color—not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of
personal expression. Henri Matisse
For a long time I limited myself to one color—as a form of discipline.
Pablo Picasso

Preview
Using color in image processing is motivated by two principal factors. First, color is a powerful descrip-
tor that often simplifies object identification and extraction from a scene. Second, humans can discern
thousands of color shades, compared to only about two dozen shades of gray. The latter factor is par-
ticularly important in manual image analysis. Color image processing is divided into two major areas:
pseudo- and full-color processing. In the first category, the issue is one of assigning color(s) to a par-
ticular grayscale intensity or range of intensities. In the second, images typically are acquired using a
full-color sensor, such as a digital camera, or color scanner. Until just a few years ago, most digital color
image processing was done at the pseudo- or reduced-color level. However, because color sensors and
processing hardware have become available at reasonable prices, full-color image processing techniques
are now used in a broad range of applications. In the discussions that follow, it will become evident that
some of the grayscale methods covered in previous chapters are applicable also to color images.

Upon completion of this chapter, readers should:

Understand the fundamentals of color and Understand the basics of working with full-
the color spectrum. color images, including color transformations,
Be familiar with several of the color models color complements, and tone/color corrections.
used in digital image processing. Be familiar with the role of noise in color
Know how to apply basic techniques in pseudo- image processing.
color image processing, including intensity slic- Know how to perform spatial filtering on col-
ing and intensity-to-color transformations. or images.
Be familiar with how to determine if a gray- Understand the advantages of using color in
scale method is extendible to color images. image segmentation.

399

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 400 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

6.1 COLOR FUNDAMENTALS

6.1

Although the process employed by the human brain in perceiving and interpreting
color is a physiopsychological phenomenon that is not fully understood, the physical
nature of color can be expressed on a formal basis supported by experimental and
theoretical results.
In 1666, Sir Isaac Newton discovered that when a beam of sunlight passes through
a glass prism, the emerging light is not white, but consists instead of a continuous
spectrum of colors ranging from violet at one end to red at the other. As Fig. 6.1
shows, the color spectrum may be divided into six broad regions: violet, blue, green,
yellow, orange, and red. When viewed in full color (see Fig. 6.2), no color in the spec-
trum ends abruptly; rather, each color blends smoothly into the next.
Basically, the colors that humans and some other animals perceive in an object
are determined by the nature of the light reflected from the object. As illustrated in
Fig. 6.2, visible light is composed of a relatively narrow band of frequencies in the
electromagnetic spectrum. A body that reflects light that is balanced in all visible
wavelengths appears white to the observer. However, a body that favors reflectance
in a limited range of the visible spectrum exhibits some shades of color. For example,
green objects reflect light with wavelengths primarily in the 500 to 570 nm range,
while absorbing most of the energy at other wavelengths.
Characterization of light is central to the science of color. If the light is achro-
matic (void of color), its only attribute is its intensity, or amount. Achromatic light
is what you see on movie films made before the 1930s. As defined in Chapter 2, and
used numerous times since, the term gray (or intensity) level refers to a scalar mea-
sure of intensity that ranges from black, to grays, and finally to white.
Chromatic light spans the electromagnetic spectrum from approximately 400
to 700 nm. Three basic quantities used to describe the quality of a chromatic light
source are: radiance, luminance, and brightness. Radiance is the total amount of
energy that flows from the light source, and it is usually measured in watts (W).
Luminance, measured in lumens (lm), is a measure of the amount of energy that
an observer perceives from a light source. For example, light emitted from a source
operating in the far infrared region of the spectrum could have significant energy
(radiance), but an observer would hardly perceive it; its luminance would be almost
zero. Finally, brightness is a subjective descriptor that is practically impossible to
measure. It embodies the achromatic notion of intensity, and is one of the key fac-
tors in describing color sensation.

FIGURE 6.1
Color spectrum
seen by passing
white light through
a prism.
(Courtesy of the
General Electric
Co., Lighting
Division.)

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 6.1 Color Fundamentals 401

FIGURE 6.2
Wavelengths compris-
ing the visible range
of the electromagnetic
spectrum. (Courtesy of
the General Electric
Co., Lighting Division.)

As noted in Section 2.1, cones are the sensors in the eye responsible for color
vision. Detailed experimental evidence has established that the 6 to 7 million cones in
the human eye can be divided into three principal sensing categories, corresponding
roughly to red, green, and blue. Approximately 65% of all cones are sensitive to red
light, 33% are sensitive to green light, and only about 2% are sensitive to blue. How-
ever, the blue cones are the most sensitive. Figure 6.3 shows average experimental
curves detailing the absorption of light by the red, green, and blue cones in the eye.
Because of these absorption characteristics, the human eye sees colors as variable
combinations of the so-called primary colors: red (R), green (G), and blue (B).
For the purpose of standardization, the CIE (Commission Internationale de
l’Eclairage—the International Commission on Illumination) designated in 1931 the
following specific wavelength values to the three primary colors: blue = 435.8 nm,
green = 546.1 nm, and red = 700 nm. This standard was set before results such as
those in Fig. 6.3 became available in 1965. Thus, the CIE standards correspond only
approximately with experimental data. It is important to keep in mind that defining
three specific primary color wavelengths for the purpose of standardization does

FIGURE 6.3 445 nm 535 nm 575 nm

Absorption of
light by the red,
Absorption (arbitrary units)

green, and blue

cones in the Blue Green Red
human eye as a
function of
wavelength.

400 450 500 550 600 650 700 nm

Bluish purple

Purplish blue

Blue
Blue green

Green

Yellowish green

Yellow
Orange

Reddish orange

Red

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 402 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

not mean that these three fixed RGB components acting alone can generate all
spectrum colors. Use of the word primary has been widely misinterpreted to mean
that the three standard primaries, when mixed in various intensity proportions, can
produce all visible colors. As you will see shortly, this interpretation is not correct
unless the wavelength also is allowed to vary, in which case we would no longer have
three fixed primary colors.
The primary colors can be added together to produce the secondary colors of
light—magenta (red plus blue), cyan (green plus blue), and yellow (red plus green).
Mixing the three primaries, or a secondary with its opposite primary color, in the
right intensities produces white light. This result is illustrated in Fig. 6.4(a), which
shows also the three primary colors and their combinations to produce the second-
ary colors of light.
Differentiating between the primary colors of light and the primary colors of pig-
ments or colorants is important. In the latter, a primary color is defined as one that
subtracts or absorbs a primary color of light, and reflects or transmits the other two.
Therefore, the primary colors of pigments are magenta, cyan, and yellow, and the
In practice, pigments secondary colors are red, green, and blue. These colors are shown in Fig. 6.4(b). A
seldom are pure. This proper combination of the three pigment primaries, or a secondary with its opposite
results in a muddy brown
instead of black when primary, produces black.
primaries, or primaries Color television reception is an example of the additive nature of light colors.
and secondaries, are
combined. We will The interior of CRT (cathode ray tube) color TV screens used well into the 1990s is
discuss this issue in composed of a large array of triangular dot patterns of electron-sensitive phosphor.
Section 6.2
When excited, each dot in a triad produces light in one of the primary colors. The

a
b
FIGURE 6.4
Primary and
secondary colors
of light and
pigments.
(Courtesy of the
General Electric
Co., Lighting
Division.)

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 6.1 Color Fundamentals 403

intensity of the red-emitting phosphor dots is modulated by an electron gun inside

the tube, which generates pulses corresponding to the “red energy” seen by the TV
camera. The green and blue phosphor dots in each triad are modulated in the same
manner. The effect, viewed on the television receiver, is that the three primary colors
from each phosphor triad are received and “added” together by the color-sensitive
cones in the eye and perceived as a full-color image. Thirty successive image changes
per second in all three colors complete the illusion of a continuous image display on
the screen.
CRT displays started being replaced in the late 1990s by flat-panel digital tech-
nologies, such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and plasma devices. Although they
are fundamentally different from CRTs, these and similar technologies use the same
principle in the sense that they all require three subpixels (red, green, and blue) to
generate a single color pixel. LCDs use properties of polarized light to block or pass
light through the LCD screen and, in the case of active matrix display technologies,
thin film transistors (TFTs) are used to provide the proper signals to address each
pixel on the screen. Light filters are used to produce the three primary colors of light
at each pixel triad location. In plasma units, pixels are tiny gas cells coated with phos-
phor to produce one of the three primary colors. The individual cells are addressed
in a manner analogous to LCDs. This individual pixel triad coordinate addressing
capability is the foundation of digital displays.
The characteristics generally used to distinguish one color from another are
brightness, hue, and saturation. As indicated earlier in this section, brightness
embodies the achromatic notion of intensity. Hue is an attribute associated with the
dominant wavelength in a mixture of light waves. Hue represents dominant color as
perceived by an observer. Thus, when we call an object red, orange, or yellow, we are
referring to its hue. Saturation refers to the relative purity or the amount of white
light mixed with a hue. The pure spectrum colors are fully saturated. Colors such
as pink (red and white) and lavender (violet and white) are less saturated, with the
degree of saturation being inversely proportional to the amount of white light added.
Hue and saturation taken together are called chromaticity and, therefore, a color
may be characterized by its brightness and chromaticity. The amounts of red, green,
and blue needed to form any particular color are called the tristimulus values, and
are denoted, X, Y, and Z, respectively. A color is then specified by its trichromatic
coefficients, defined as

X
x= (6-1)
X +Y + Z

Y
y= (6-2)
X +Y + Z

and
Z
z= (6-3)
X +Y + Z

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 404 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

Our use of x, y, and z in We see from these equations that

this context follows con-
vention. These should not
be confused with our use x+y+z=1 (6-4)
of (x, y) throughout the
book to denote spatial
coordinates. For any wavelength of light in the visible spectrum, the tristimulus values needed
to produce the color corresponding to that wavelength can be obtained directly
from curves or tables that have been compiled from extensive experimental results
(Poynton [1996, 2012]).
Another approach for specifying colors is to use the CIE chromaticity diagram (see
Fig. 6.5), which shows color composition as a function of x (red) and y (green). For
any value of x and y, the corresponding value of z (blue) is obtained from Eq. (6-4)
by noting that z = 1 − ( x + y). The point marked green in Fig. 6.5, for example, has
approximately 62% green and 25% red content. It follows from Eq. (6-4) that the
composition of blue is approximately 13%.
The positions of the various spectrum colors—from violet at 380 nm to red at
780 nm—are indicated around the boundary of the tongue-shaped chromaticity dia-
gram. These are the pure colors shown in the spectrum of Fig. 6.2. Any point not
actually on the boundary, but within the diagram, represents some mixture of the
pure spectrum colors. The point of equal energy shown in Fig. 6.5 corresponds to
equal fractions of the three primary colors; it represents the CIE standard for white
light. Any point located on the boundary of the chromaticity chart is fully saturated.
As a point leaves the boundary and approaches the point of equal energy, more
white light is added to the color, and it becomes less saturated. The saturation at the
point of equal energy is zero.
The chromaticity diagram is useful for color mixing because a straight-line seg-
ment joining any two points in the diagram defines all the different color variations
that can be obtained by combining these two colors additively. Consider, for exam-
ple, a straight line drawn from the red to the green points shown in Fig. 6.5. If there is
more red than green light, the exact point representing the new color will be on the
line segment, but it will be closer to the red point than to the green point. Similarly, a
line drawn from the point of equal energy to any point on the boundary of the chart
will define all the shades of that particular spectrum color.
Extending this procedure to three colors is straightforward. To determine the
range of colors that can be obtained from any three given colors in the chromatic-
ity diagram, we simply draw connecting lines to each of the three color points. The
result is a triangle, and any color inside the triangle, or on its boundary, can be pro-
duced by various combinations of the three vertex colors. A triangle with vertices at
any three fixed colors cannot enclose the entire color region in Fig. 6.5. This observa-
tion supports graphically the remark made earlier that not all colors can be obtained
with three single, fixed primaries, because three colors form a triangle.
The triangle in Fig. 6.6 shows a representative range of colors (called the color
gamut) produced by RGB monitors. The shaded region inside the triangle illustrates
the color gamut of today’s high-quality color printing devices. The boundary of the
color printing gamut is irregular because color printing is a combination of additive
and subtractive color mixing, a process that is much more difficult to control than

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 6.2 Color Models 405

FIGURE 6.5
The CIE
chromaticity
diagram.
(Courtesy of the
General Electric
Co., Lighting
Division.)

that of displaying colors on a monitor, which is based on the addition of three highly
controllable light primaries.

6.2 COLOR MODELS

6.2

The purpose of a color model (also called a color space or color system) is to facilitate the
specification of colors in some standard way. In essence, a color model is a specification
of (1) a coordinate system, and (2) a subspace within that system, such that each color in
the model is represented by a single point contained in that subspace.
Most color models in use today are oriented either toward hardware (such as for
color monitors and printers) or toward applications, where color manipulation is
a goal (the creation of color graphics for animation is an example of the latter). In
terms of digital image processing, the hardware-oriented models most commonly
used in practice are the RGB (red, green, blue) model for color monitors and a

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 406 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

FIGURE 6.6 .9
Illustrative color
gamut of color 520
monitors
(triangle) and .8 530
color printing
510 540
devices (shaded
G
region).
.7 550

560
.6

570
500

.5
580
y-axis

590
.4
600

610
R 620
.3 490
640
780

.2

480

.1
470
460
B
450 380
0
0 .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6 .7 .8
x-axis

broad class of color video cameras; the CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow) and CMYK
(cyan, magenta, yellow, black) models for color printing; and the HSI (hue, satura-
tion, intensity) model, which corresponds closely with the way humans describe and
interpret color. The HSI model also has the advantage that it decouples the color
and gray-scale information in an image, making it suitable for many of the gray-scale
techniques developed in this book. There are numerous color models in use today.
This is a reflection of the fact that color science is a broad field that encompasses
many areas of application. It is tempting to dwell on some of these models here, sim-
ply because they are interesting and useful. However, keeping to the task at hand,
we focus attention on a few models that are representative of those used in image
processing. Having mastered the material in this chapter, you will have no difficulty
in understanding additional color models in use today.

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 6.2 Color Models 407

FIGURE 6.7 B
Schematic of the
RGB color cube.
Points along the
(0, 0, 1)
main diagonal Blue Cyan
have gray values,
from black at the
origin to white at Magenta
White
point (1, 1, 1).

Grayscale (0, 1, 0)
Black G
Green

(1, 0, 0)
Red Yellow

THE RGB COLOR MODEL

In the RGB model, each color appears in its primary spectral components of red,
green, and blue. This model is based on a Cartesian coordinate system. The color
subspace of interest is the cube shown in Fig. 6.7, in which RGB primary values are
at three corners; the secondary colors cyan, magenta, and yellow are at three other
corners; black is at the origin; and white is at the corner farthest from the origin. In
this model, the grayscale (points of equal RGB values) extends from black to white
along the line joining these two points. The different colors in this model are points
on or inside the cube, and are defined by vectors extending from the origin. For con-
venience, the assumption is that all color values have been normalized so the cube
in Fig. 6.7 is the unit cube. That is, all values of R, G, and B in this representation are
assumed to be in the range [0, 1]. Note that the RGB primaries can be interpreted as
unit vectors emanating from the origin of the cube.
Images represented in the RGB color model consist of three component images,
one for each primary color. When fed into an RGB monitor, these three images
combine on the screen to produce a composite color image, as explained in Sec-
tion 6.1. The number of bits used to represent each pixel in RGB space is called the
pixel depth. Consider an RGB image in which each of the red, green, and blue imag-
es is an 8-bit image. Under these conditions, each RGB color pixel [that is, a triplet of
values (R, G, B)] has a depth of 24 bits (3 image planes times the number of bits per
plane). The term full-color image is used often to denote a 24-bit RGB color image.
The total number of possible colors in a 24-bit RGB image is (2 8 )3 = 16, 777, 216.
Figure 6.8 shows the 24-bit RGB color cube corresponding to the diagram in Fig. 6.7.
Note also that for digital images, the range of values in the cube are scaled to the

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 408 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing
FIGURE 6.8
A 24-bit RGB
color cube.

numbers representable by the number bits in the images. If, as above, the primary
images are 8-bit images, the limits of the cube along each axis becomes [0, 255].
Then, for example, white would be at point [ 255, 255, 255] in the cube.

EXAMPLE 6.1 : Generating a cross-section of the RGB color cube and its thee hidden planes.
The cube in Fig. 6.8 is a solid, composed of the (2 8 )3 colors mentioned in the preceding paragraph. A
useful way to view these colors is to generate color planes (faces or cross sections of the cube). This is
done by fixing one of the three colors and allowing the other two to vary. For instance, a cross-sectional
plane through the center of the cube and parallel to the GB-plane in Fig. 6.8 is the plane (127, G, B) for
G, B = 0, 1, 2,…, 255. Figure 6.9(a) shows that an image of this cross-sectional plane is generated by feed-
ing the three individual component images into a color monitor. In the component images, 0 represents
black and 255 represents white. Observe that each component image into the monitor is a grayscale
image. The monitor does the job of combining the intensities of these images to generate an RGB image.
Figure 6.9(b) shows the three hidden surface planes of the cube in Fig. 6.8, generated in a similar manner.
Acquiring a color image is the process shown in Fig. 6.9(a) in reverse. A color image can be acquired
by using three filters, sensitive to red, green, and blue, respectively. When we view a color scene with a
monochrome camera equipped with one of these filters, the result is a monochrome image whose inten-
sity is proportional to the response of that filter. Repeating this process with each filter produces three
monochrome images that are the RGB component images of the color scene. In practice, RGB color
image sensors usually integrate this process into a single device. Clearly, displaying these three RGB
component images as in Fig. 6.9(a) would yield an RGB color rendition of the original color scene.

THE CMY AND CMYK COLOR MODELS

As indicated in Section 6.1, cyan, magenta, and yellow are the secondary colors of
light or, alternatively, they are the primary colors of pigments. For example, when
a surface coated with cyan pigment is illuminated with white light, no red light is
reflected from the surface. That is, cyan subtracts red light from reflected white light,
which itself is composed of equal amounts of red, green, and blue light.
Most devices that deposit colored pigments on paper, such as color printers and
copiers, require CMY data input or perform an RGB to CMY conversion internally.
This conversion is performed using the simple operation

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 6.2 Color Models 409

a
b
Red
FIGURE 6.9
(a) Generating
the RGB image of
the cross-sectional
color plane
(127, G, B).
(b) The three Green RGB
hidden surface Color
monitor
planes in the color
cube of Fig. 6.8.

Blue

(R  0) (G  0) (B  0)

Equation (6-5), as well as ⎡C ⎤ ⎡1⎤ ⎡R ⎤

all other equations in this ⎢ M ⎥ = ⎢1⎥ − ⎢G ⎥ (6-5)
section, are applied on a ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
pixel-by-pixel basis. ⎢⎣Y ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣1⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ B ⎥⎦

where the assumption is that all RGB color values have been normalized to the
range [0, 1]. Equation (6-5) demonstrates that light reflected from a surface coated
with pure cyan does not contain red (that is, C = 1 − R in the equation). Similarly,
pure magenta does not reflect green, and pure yellow does not reflect blue. Equa-
tion (6-5) also reveals that RGB values can be obtained easily from a set of CMY
values by subtracting the individual CMY values from 1.
According to Fig. 6.4, equal amounts of the pigment primaries, cyan, magenta, and
yellow, should produce black. In practice, because C, M, and Y inks seldom are pure
colors, combining these colors for printing black produces instead a muddy-looking
brown. So, in order to produce true black (which is the predominant color in print-
ing), a fourth color, black, denoted by K, is added, giving rise to the CMYK color
model. The black is added in just the proportions needed to produce true black. Thus,

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 410 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

when publishers talk about “four-color printing,” they are referring to the three
CMY colors, plus a portion of black.
The conversion from CMY to CMYK begins by letting

K = min(C , M , Y ) (6-6)

If K = 1, then we have pure black, with no color contributions, from which it follows
that

C=0 (6-7)

M=0 (6-8)
The C, M, and Y on the
right side of Eqs. (6-6)-
(6-12) are in the CMY Y=0 (6-9)
color system. The C,
M, and Y on the left of Otherwise,
Eqs. (6-7)-(6-12) are in
the CMYK system. C = (C − K ) (1 − K ) (6-10)

M = (M − K ) (1 − K ) (6-11)

Y = (Y − K ) (1 − K ) (6-12)

where all values are assumed to be in the range [0, 1]. The conversions from CMYK
back to CMY are:
The C, M, Y, and K
on the right side of C = C * (1 − K ) + K (6-13)
Eqs. (6-13)-(6-15) are in
the CMYK color system.
The C, M, and Y on the M = M * (1 − K ) + K (6-14)
left of these equations
are in the CMY system.
Y = Y * (1 − Y ) + K (6-15)

As noted at the beginning of this section, all operations in the preceding equations
are performed on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Because we can use Eq. (6-5) to convert
both ways between CMY and RGB, we can use that equation as a “bridge” to con-
vert between RGB and CMYK, and vice versa.
It is important to keep in mind that all the conversions just presented to go
between RGB, CMY, and CMYK are based on the preceding relationships as a
group. There are many other ways to convert between these color models, so you
cannot mix approaches and expect to get meaningful results. Also, colors seen on
monitors generally appear much different when printed, unless these devices are
calibrated (see the discussion of a device-independent color model later in this
section). The same holds true in general for colors converted from one model to
another. However, our interest in this chapter is not on color fidelity; rather, we are
interested in using the properties of color models to facilitate image processing tasks,
such as region detection.

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 6.2 Color Models 411

THE HSI COLOR MODEL

As we have seen, creating colors in the RGB, CMY, and CMYK models, and chang-
ing from one model to the other, is straightforward. These color systems are ideally
suited for hardware implementations. In addition, the RGB system matches nicely
with the fact that the human eye is strongly perceptive to red, green, and blue pri-
maries. Unfortunately, the RGB, CMY, and other similar color models are not well
suited for describing colors in terms that are practical for human interpretation. For
example, one does not refer to the color of an automobile by giving the percentage
of each of the primaries composing its color. Furthermore, we do not think of color
images as being composed of three primary images that combine to form a single
image.
When humans view a color object, we describe it by its hue, saturation, and
brightness. Recall from the discussion in Section 6.1 that hue is a color attribute
that describes a pure color (pure yellow, orange, or red), whereas saturation gives
a measure of the degree to which a pure color is diluted by white light. Brightness
is a subjective descriptor that is practically impossible to measure. It embodies the
achromatic notion of intensity and is one of the key factors in describing color sensa-
tion. We do know that intensity (gray level) is a most useful descriptor of achromatic
images. This quantity definitely is measurable and easily interpretable. The mod-
el we are about to present, called the HSI (hue, saturation, intensity) color model,
decouples the intensity component from the color-carrying information (hue and
saturation) in a color image. As a result, the HSI model is a useful tool for develop-
ing image processing algorithms based on color descriptions that are natural and
intuitive to humans, who, after all, are the developers and users of these algorithms.
We can summarize by saying that RGB is ideal for image color generation (as in
image capture by a color camera or image display on a monitor screen), but its use
for color description is much more limited. The material that follows provides an
effective way to do this.
We know from Example 6.1 that an RGB color image is composed three gray-
scale intensity images (representing red, green, and blue), so it should come as no
surprise that we can to extract intensity from an RGB image. This becomes clear if
we take the color cube from Fig. 6.7 and stand it on the black, (0, 0, 0), vertex, with
the white, (1, 1, 1), vertex directly above it [see Fig. 6.10(a)]. As noted in our discus-
sion of Fig. 6.7, the intensity (gray) scale is along the line joining these two vertices.
In Figs. 6.10(a) and (b), the line (intensity axis) joining the black and white vertices is
vertical. Thus, if we wanted to determine the intensity component of any color point
in Fig. 6.10, we would simply define a plane that contains the color point and, at the
same time, is perpendicular to the intensity axis. The intersection of the plane with
the intensity axis would give us a point with intensity value in the range [0, 1]. A little
thought would reveal that the saturation (purity) of a color increases as a function of
distance from the intensity axis. In fact, the saturation of points on the intensity axis
is zero, as evidenced by the fact that all points along this axis are gray.
Hue can be determined from an RGB value also. To see how, consider Fig. 6.10(b),
which shows a plane defined by three points (black, white, and cyan). The fact that

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 412 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a b White White

FIGURE 6.10
Conceptual
relationships Magenta Magenta
between the RGB Cyan Yellow Cyan Yellow
and HSI color
models.

Blue Red Blue Red

Green Green

Black Black

the black and white points are contained in the plane tells us that the intensity axis
also is contained in the plane. Furthermore, we see that all points contained in the
plane segment defined by the intensity axis and the boundaries of the cube have the
same hue (cyan in this case). We could arrive at the same conclusion by recalling
from Section 6.1 that all colors generated by three colors lie in the triangle defined
by those colors. If two of those points are black and white, and the third is a color
point, all points on the triangle would have the same hue, because the black and
white components cannot change the hue (of course, the intensity and saturation
of points in this triangle would be different). By rotating the shaded plane about
the vertical intensity axis, we would obtain different hues. From these concepts, we
arrive at the conclusion that the hue, saturation, and intensity values required to
form the HSI space can be obtained from the RGB color cube. That is, we can con-
vert any RGB point to a corresponding point in the HSI color space by working out
the formulas that describe the reasoning outlined in the preceding discussion.
The key point regarding the cube arrangement in Fig. 6.10, and its corresponding
HSI color space, is that the HSI space is represented by a vertical intensity axis, and
the locus of color points that lie on planes perpendicular to that axis. As the planes
move up and down the intensity axis, the boundaries defined by the intersection of
each plane with the faces of the cube have either a triangular or a hexagonal shape.
This can be visualized much more readily by looking at the cube straight down its
grayscale axis, as shown in Fig. 6.11(a). We see that the primary colors are separated
by 120°. The secondary colors are 60° from the primaries, which means that the angle
between secondaries is 120° also. Figure 6.11(b) shows the same hexagonal shape
and an arbitrary color point (shown as a dot). The hue of the point is determined by
an angle from some reference point. Usually (but not always) an angle of 0° from
the red axis designates 0 hue, and the hue increases counterclockwise from there.
The saturation (distance from the vertical axis) is the length of the vector from the
origin to the point. Note that the origin is defined by the intersection of the color
plane with the vertical intensity axis. The important components of the HSI color
space are the vertical intensity axis, the length of the vector to a color point, and the

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 6.2 Color Models 413

a Green Yellow
b c d
FIGURE 6.11
Hue and saturation Cyan White Red
in the HSI color
model. The dot is
any color point.
The angle from the
Blue Magenta
red axis gives the
hue. The length of Green Yellow Green Yellow
Green
the vector is the
saturation. The S S
intensity of all col- H H
ors in any of these Cyan Red Cyan S Yellow Cyan Red
planes is given by H
the position of the
plane on the verti-
cal intensity axis. Blue Magenta Blue Magenta Red Blue Magenta

angle this vector makes with the red axis. Therefore, it is not unusual to see the HSI
planes defined in terms of the hexagon just discussed, a triangle, or even a circle, as
Figs. 6.11(c) and (d) show. The shape chosen does not matter because any one of
these shapes can be warped into one of the other two by a geometric transformation.
Figure 6.12 shows the HSI model based on color triangles, and on circles.

Converting Colors from RGB to HSI

Given an image in RGB color format, the H component of each RGB pixel is
Computations from obtained using the equation
RGB to HSI and back
are carried out on a
⎧ u if B ≤ G
pixel-by-pixel basis. We H=⎨ (6-16)
omitted the depen-
⎩360 − u if B > G
dence of the conversion
equations on (x, y) for
notational clarity. with†
⎧ ⎫
2⎡⎣( R − G ) + ( R − B )⎤⎦
1
⎪ ⎪
u = cos −1 ⎨ 1/ 2 ⎬
(6-17)
⎪ ⎡ ( R − G ) + ( R − B ) (G − B ) ⎤ ⎪
2
⎩⎣ ⎦ ⎭
The saturation component is given by

3
S=1 − ⎡ min ( R, G, B )⎤⎦ (6-18)
( R + G + B) ⎣
†
It is good practice to add a small number in the denominator of this expression to avoid dividing by 0 when
R = G = B, in which case u will be 90°. Note that when all RGB components are equal, Eq. (6-18) gives S = 0.
In addition, the conversion from HSI back to RGB in Eqs. (6-20) through (6-30) will give R = G = B = I , as
expected, because, when R = G = B, we are dealing with a grayscale image.

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 414 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a White
b
FIGURE 6.12 I  0.75
The HSI color
model based on
(a) triangular, and I
(b) circular color
planes. The Green
triangles and Cyan Yellow
H
circles are
S
perpendicular to I  0.5 Blue Red
Magenta
the vertical
intensity axis.

Black

White

I  0.75

Green Yellow
I  0.5 Cyan H
S Red

Blue Magenta

Black

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 6.2 Color Models 415

Finally, the intensity component is obtained from the equation

1
I= ( R + G + B) (6-19)
3
These equations assume that the RGB values have been normalized to the range
[0, 1], and that angle u is measured with respect to the red axis of the HSI space, as
in Fig. 6.11. Hue can be normalized to the range [0, 1] by dividing by 360° all values
resulting from Eq. (6-16). The other two HSI components already are in this range if
the given RGB values are in the interval [0, 1].
The results in Eqs. (6-16) through (6-19) can be derived from the geometry in
Figs. 6.10 and 6.11. The derivation is tedious and would not add significantly to the
present discussion. You can find the proof for these equations (and for the equations
that follow for HSI to RGB conversion) in the Tutorials section of the book website.

Converting Colors from HSI to RGB

Given values of HSI in the interval [0, 1], we now want to find the corresponding
RGB values in the same range. The applicable equations depend on the values of H.
There are three sectors of interest, corresponding to the 120° intervals in the separa-
tion of primaries (see Fig. 6.11). We begin by multiplying H by 360°, which returns
the hue to its original range of [0°, 360°].

RG sector ( 0° ≤ H < 120° ) : When H is in this sector, the RGB components are given
by the equations

B = I (1 − S ) (6-20)

⎡ S cos H ⎤
R = I ⎢1 +
( 60° − H ) ⎥⎦
(6-21)
⎣ cos
and

G = 3I − ( R + B ) (6-22)

GB sector (120° ≤ H < 240° ) : If the given value of H is in this sector, we first sub-
tract 120° from it:

H = H − 120° (6-23)

Then, the RGB components are

R = I (1 − S ) (6-24)

⎡ S cos H ⎤
G = I ⎢1 + ⎥ (6-25)
⎣ cos ( 60° − H ) ⎦

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 416 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

and

B = 3I − ( R + G ) (6-26)

BR sector ( 240° ≤ H ≤ 360° ) : Finally, if H is in this range, we subtract 240° from it:

H = H − 240° (6-27)

Then, the RGB components are

G = I (1 − S ) (6-28)

⎡ S cos H ⎤
B = I ⎢1 + ⎥ (6-29)
⎣ cos ( 60° − H ) ⎦
and

R = 3 I − (G + B ) (6-30)

We discuss several uses of these equations in the following sections.

EXAMPLE 6.2 : The HSI values corresponding to the image of the RGB color cube.
Figure 6.13 shows the hue, saturation, and intensity images for the RGB values in Fig. 6.8. Figure 6.13(a)
is the hue image. Its most distinguishing feature is the discontinuity in value along a 45° line in the front
(red) plane of the cube. To understand the reason for this discontinuity, refer to Fig. 6.8, draw a line from
the red to the white vertices of the cube, and select a point in the middle of this line. Starting at that point,
draw a path to the right, following the cube around until you return to the starting point. The major
colors encountered in this path are yellow, green, cyan, blue, magenta, and back to red. According to
Fig. 6.11, the values of hue along this path should increase from 0° to 360° (i.e., from the lowest to highest

a b c
FIGURE 6.13 HSI components of the image in Fig. 6.8: (a) hue, (b) saturation, and (c) intensity images.

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 6.2 Color Models 417

possible values of hue). This is precisely what Fig. 6.13(a) shows, because the lowest value is represented
as black and the highest value as white in the grayscale. In fact, the hue image was originally normalized
to the range [0, 1] and then scaled to 8 bits; that is, we converted it to the range [0, 255], for display.
The saturation image in Fig. 6.13(b) shows progressively darker values toward the white vertex of the
RGB cube, indicating that colors become less and less saturated as they approach white. Finally, every
pixel in the intensity image shown in Fig. 6.13(c) is the average of the RGB values at the corresponding
pixel in Fig. 6.8.

Manipulating HSI Component Images

In the following discussion, we take a look at some simple techniques for manipulating
HSI component images. This will help you develop familiarity with these comonents,
and deepen your understanding of the HSI color model. Figure 6.14(a) shows an
image composed of the primary and secondary RGB colors. Figures 6.14(b) through
(d) show the H, S, and I components of this image, generated using Eqs. (6-16) through
(6-19). Recall from the discussion earlier in this section that the gray-level values in
Fig. 6.14(b) correspond to angles; thus, for example, because red corresponds to 0°,
the red region in Fig. 6.14(a) is mapped to a black region in the hue image. Similarly,
the gray levels in Fig. 6.14(c) correspond to saturation (they were scaled to [0, 255] for
display), and the gray levels in Fig. 6.14(d) are average intensities.
To change the individual color of any region in the RGB image, we change the
values of the corresponding region in the hue image of Fig. 6.14(b). Then we convert

a b
c d
FIGURE 6.14
(a) RGB image
and the
components of
its corresponding
HSI image:
(b) hue,
(c) saturation, and
(d) intensity.

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 418 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a b
c d
FIGURE 6.15
(a)-(c) Modified
HSI component
images.
(d) Resulting RGB
image. (See Fig.
6.14 for the original
HSI images.)

the new H image, along with the unchanged S and I images, back to RGB using the
procedure explained in Eqs. (6-20) through (6-30). To change the saturation (purity)
of the color in any region, we follow the same procedure, except that we make the
changes in the saturation image in HSI space. Similar comments apply to changing
the average intensity of any region. Of course, these changes can be made simulta-
neously. For example, the image in Fig. 6.15(a) was obtained by changing to 0 the
pixels corresponding to the blue and green regions in Fig. 6.14(b). In Fig. 6.15(b),
we reduced by half the saturation of the cyan region in component image S from
Fig. 6.14(c). In Fig. 6.15(c), we reduced by half the intensity of the central white
region in the intensity image of Fig. 6.14(d). The result of converting this modified
HSI image back to RGB is shown in Fig. 6.15(d). As expected, we see in this figure
that the outer portions of all circles are now red; the purity of the cyan region was
diminished, and the central region became gray rather than white. Although these
results are simple, they clearly illustrate the power of the HSI color model in allow-
ing independent control over hue, saturation, and intensity. These are quantities with
which humans are quite familiar when describing colors.

A DEVICE INDEPENDENT COLOR MODEL

As noted earlier, humans see a broad spectrum of colors and color shades. However,
color perception differs between individuals. Not only that, but color across devices
such as monitors and printers can vary significantly unless these devices are prop-
erly calibrated.

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 6.2 Color Models 419

Color transformations can be performed on most desktop computers. In conjunc-

tion with digital cameras, flatbed scanners, and ink-jet printers, they turn a personal
computer into a digital darkroom. Also, commercial devices exist that use a combi-
nation of spectrometer measurements and software to develop color profiles that
can then be loaded on monitors and printers to calibrate their color responses.
The effectiveness of the transformations examined in this section is judged ulti-
mately in print. Because these transformations are developed, refined, and evaluated
on monitors, it is necessary to maintain a high degree of color consistency between
the monitors used and the eventual output devices. This is best accomplished with
a device-independent color model that relates the color gamuts (see Section 6.1)
of the monitors and output devices, as well as any other devices being used, to one
another. The success of this approach depends on the quality of the color profiles
used to map each device to the model, as well as the model itself. The model of
choice for many color management systems (CMS) is the CIE L * a * b * model, also
called CIELAB (CIE [1978], Robertson [1977]).
The L * a * b * color components are given by the following equations:

⎛ Y ⎞
L* = 116 ⋅ h ⎜ − 16 (6-31)
⎝ YW ⎟⎠

⎡ ⎛ X ⎞ ⎛ Y ⎞⎤
a* = 500 ⎢ h ⎜ ⎟ − h⎜ ⎥ (6-32)
⎣ ⎝ XW ⎠ ⎝ YW ⎟⎠ ⎦
and
⎡ ⎛ Y ⎞ ⎛ Z ⎞⎤
b* = 200 ⎢ h ⎜ ⎟ − h⎜ ⎥ (6-33)
⎣ ⎝ YW ⎠ ⎝ ZW ⎟⎠ ⎦
where

⎧⎪ 3 q q > 0.008856
h (q) = ⎨ (6-34)
⎩⎪ 7 .787 q + 16 / 116 q ≤ 0.008856

and X W , YW , and ZW are reference white tristimulus values—typically the white

of a perfectly reflecting diffuser under CIE standard D65 illumination (defined by
x = 0.3127 and y = 0.3290 in the CIE chromaticity diagram of Fig. 6.5). The L * a * b *
color space is colorimetric (i.e., colors perceived as matching are encoded identically),
perceptually uniform (i.e., color differences among various hues are perceived uni-
formly—see the classic paper by MacAdams [1942]), and device independent. While
L * a * b * colors are not directly displayable (conversion to another color space is
required), the L * a * b * gamut encompasses the entire visible spectrum and can
represent accurately the colors of any display, print, or input device. Like the HSI
system, the L * a * b * system is an excellent decoupler of intensity (represented by
lightness L*) and color (represented by a * for red minus green and b * for green
minus blue), making it useful in both image manipulation (tone and contrast edit-
ing) and image compression applications. Studies indicate that the degree to which

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 420 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

the lightness information is separated from the color information in the L * a * b *

system is greater than in any other color system (see Kasson and Plouffe [1972]).
The principal benefit of calibrated imaging systems is that they allow tonal and color
imbalances to be corrected interactively and independently—that is, in two sequen-
tial operations. Before color irregularities, like over- and under-saturated colors, are
resolved, problems involving the image’s tonal range are corrected. The tonal range
of an image, also called its key type, refers to its general distribution of color intensi-
ties. Most of the information in high-key images is concentrated at high (or light)
intensities; the colors of low-key images are located predominantly at low intensi-
ties; middle-key images lie in between. As in the monochrome case, it is often desir-
able to distribute the intensities of a color image equally between the highlights and
the shadows. In Section 6.4, we give examples showing a variety of color transfor-
mations for the correction of tonal and color imbalances.

6.3 PSEUDOCOLOR IMAGE PROCESSING

6.3

Pseudocolor (sometimes called false color) image processing consists of assigning

colors to gray values based on a specified criterion. The term pseudo or false color is
used to differentiate the process of assigning colors to achromatic images from the
processes associated with true color images, a topic discussed starting in Section 6.4.
The principal use of pseudocolor is for human visualization and interpretation of
grayscale events in an image or sequence of images. As noted at the beginning of this
chapter, one of the principal motivations for using color is the fact that humans can
discern thousands of color shades and intensities, compared to less than two dozen
shades of gray.

INTENSITY SLICING AND COLOR CODING

The techniques of intensity (sometimes called density) slicing and color coding are
the simplest and earliest examples of pseudocolor processing of digital images. If an
image is interpreted as a 3-D function [see Fig. 2.18(a)], the method can be viewed
as one of placing planes parallel to the coordinate plane of the image; each plane
then “slices” the function in the area of intersection. Figure 6.16 shows an example
of using a plane at f ( x, y ) = li to slice the image intensity function into two levels.
If a different color is assigned to each side of the plane in Fig. 6.16, any pixel
whose intensity level is above the plane will be coded with one color, and any pixel
below the plane will be coded with the other. Levels that lie on the plane itself may
be arbitrarily assigned one of the two colors, or they could be given a third color to
highlight all the pixels at that level. The result is a two- (or three-) color image whose
relative appearance can be controlled by moving the slicing plane up and down the
intensity axis.
In general, the technique for multiple colors may be summarized as follows. Let
[0, L − 1] represent the grayscale, let level l0 represent black [ f ( x, y) = 0], and level
lL−1 represent white [ f ( x, y) = L − 1]. Suppose that P planes perpendicular to the
intensity axis are defined at levels l1 , l2 , …, lP . Then, assuming that 0 < P < L − 1,
the P planes partition the grayscale into P + 1 intervals, I1 , I 2 ,…, I P +1 . Intensity to
color assignments at each pixel location ( x, y) are made according to the equation

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 6.3 Pseudocolor Image Processing 421

FIGURE 6.16 f(x, y)

Graphical Intensity
interpretation of (White) L  1
the intensity- Slicing plane
slicing technique. li

(Black) 0 y

if f ( x, y) ∈ I k , let f ( x, y ) = ck (6-35)

where ck is the color associated with the kth intensity interval I k , defined by the
planes at l = k − 1 and l = k.
Figure 6.16 is not the only way to visualize the method just described. Figure 6.17
shows an equivalent approach. According to the mapping in this figure, any image
intensity below level li is assigned one color, and any level above is assigned another.
When more partitioning levels are used, the mapping function takes on a staircase
form.

EXAMPLE 6.3: Intensity slicing and color coding.

A simple but practical use of intensity slicing is shown in Fig. 6.18. Figure 6.18(a) is a grayscale image of
the Picker Thyroid Phantom (a radiation test pattern), and Fig. 6.18(b) is the result of intensity slicing
this image into eight colors. Regions that appear of constant intensity in the grayscale image are actually
quite variable, as shown by the various colors in the sliced image. For instance, the left lobe is a dull gray
in the grayscale image, and picking out variations in intensity is difficult. By contrast, the color image

FIGURE 6.17
An alternative c2
representation of
the intensity-
Color

slicing technique.
c1

0 li L1
Intensity levels

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 422 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a b
FIGURE 6.18
(a) Grayscale
image of the
Picker Thyroid
Phantom.
(b) Result of
intensity slicing
using eight colors.
(Courtesy of Dr.
J. L. Blankenship,
Oak Ridge
National
Laboratory.)

clearly shows eight different regions of constant intensity, one for each of the colors used. By varying the
number of colors and the span of the intensity intervals, one can quickly determine the characteristics
of intensity variations in a grayscale image. This is particularly true in situations such as the one shown
here, in which the object of interest has uniform texture with intensity variations that are difficult to
analyze visually. This example also illustrates the comments made in Section 6.1 about the eye’s superior
capability for detecting different color shades.
In the preceding simple example, the grayscale was divided into intervals and a different color was
assigned to each, with no regard for the meaning of the gray levels in the image. Interest in that case was
simply to view the different gray levels constituting the image. Intensity slicing assumes a much more
meaningful and useful role when subdivision of the grayscale is based on physical characteristics of the
image. For instance, Fig. 6.19(a) shows an X-ray image of a weld (the broad, horizontal dark region)
containing several cracks and porosities (the bright streaks running horizontally through the middle of
the image). When there is a porosity or crack in a weld, the full strength of the X-rays going through the
object saturates the imaging sensor on the other side of the object. Thus, intensity values of 255 in an
8-bit image coming from such a system automatically imply a problem with the weld. If human visual
analysis is used to inspect welds (still a common procedure today), a simple color coding that assigns

a b
FIGURE 6.19
(a) X-ray image
of a weld.
(b) Result of color
coding. (Original
image courtesy of
X-TEK Systems,
Ltd.)

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 6.3 Pseudocolor Image Processing 423

one color to level 255 and another to all other intensity levels can simplify the inspector’s job consider-
ably. Figure 6.19(b) shows the result. No explanation is required to arrive at the conclusion that human
error rates would be lower if images were displayed in the form of Fig. 6.19(b), instead of the form in
Fig. 6.19(a). In other words, if an intensity value, or range of values, one is looking for is known, intensity
slicing is a simple but powerful aid in visualization, especially if numerous images have to be inspected
on a routine basis.

EXAMPLE 6.4 : Use of color to highlight rainfall levels.

Measurement of rainfall levels, especially in the tropical regions of the Earth, is of interest in diverse
applications dealing with the environment. Accurate measurements using ground-based sensors are
difficult and expensive to acquire, and total rainfall figures are even more difficult to obtain because a
significant portion of precipitation occurs over the ocean. One approach for obtaining rainfall figures
remotely is to use satellites. The TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) satellite utilizes, among
others, three sensors specially designed to detect rain: a precipitation radar, a microwave imager, and a
visible and infrared scanner (see Sections 1.3 and 2.3 regarding image sensing modalities).
The results from the various rain sensors are processed, resulting in estimates of average rainfall
over a given time period in the area monitored by the sensors. From these estimates, it is not difficult to
generate grayscale images whose intensity values correspond directly to rainfall, with each pixel repre-
senting a physical land area whose size depends on the resolution of the sensors. Such an intensity image
is shown in Fig. 6.20(a), where the area monitored by the satellite is the horizontal band highlighted in
the middle of the picture (these are tropical regions). In this particular example, the rainfall values are
monthly averages (in inches) over a three-year period.
Visual examination of this picture for rainfall patterns is difficult and prone to error. However, sup-
pose that we code intensity levels from 0 to 255 using the colors shown in Fig. 6.20(b). In this mode of
intensity slicing, each slice is one of the colors in the color band. Values toward the blues signify low val-
ues of rainfall, with the opposite being true for red. Note that the scale tops out at pure red for values of
rainfall greater than 20 inches. Figure 6.20(c) shows the result of color coding the grayscale image with
the color map just discussed. The results are much easier to interpret, as shown in this figure and in the
zoomed area of Fig. 6.20(d). In addition to providing global coverage, this type of data allows meteorolo-
gists to calibrate ground-based rain monitoring systems with greater precision than ever before.

INTENSITY TO COLOR TRANSFORMATIONS

Other types of transformations are more general, and thus are capable of achieving
a wider range of pseudocolor enhancement results than the simple slicing technique
discussed in the preceding section. Figure 6.21 shows an approach that is particularly
attractive. Basically, the idea underlying this approach is to perform three indepen-
dent transformations on the intensity of input pixels. The three results are then fed
separately into the red, green, and blue channels of a color monitor. This method
produces a composite image whose color content is modulated by the nature of the
transformation functions.
The method for intensity slicing discussed in the previous section is a special case
of the technique just described. There, piecewise linear functions of the intensity
levels (see Fig. 6.17) are used to generate colors. On the other hand, the method

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 424 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a b
c d
FIGURE 6.20 (a) Grayscale image in which intensity (in the horizontal band shown) corresponds to average monthly
rainfall. (b) Colors assigned to intensity values. (c) Color-coded image. (d) Zoom of the South American region.
(Courtesy of NASA.)

FIGURE 6.21
Functional block Red
transformation fR (x, y)
diagram for
pseudocolor image
processing. Images
fR , fG ,and fB are
fed into the Green
corresponding red, f (x, y) fG (x, y)
transformation
green, and blue
inputs of an RGB
color monitor.
Blue
fB (x, y)
transformation

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 6.3 Pseudocolor Image Processing 425
a
b c
FIGURE 6.22
Pseudocolor
enhancement by
using the gray
level to color
transformations in
Fig. 6.23. (Original
image courtesy of
Dr. Mike Hurwitz,
Westinghouse.)

discussed in this section can be based on smooth, nonlinear functions, which gives
the technique considerable flexibility.

EXAMPLE 6.5 : Using pseudocolor to highlight explosives in X-ray images.

Figure 6.22(a) shows two monochrome images of luggage obtained from an airport X-ray scanning sys-
tem. The image on the left contains ordinary articles. The image on the right contains the same articles,
as well as a block of simulated plastic explosives. The purpose of this example is to illustrate the use of
intensity to color transformations to facilitate detection of the explosives.
Figure 6.23 shows the transformation functions used. These sinusoidal functions contain regions
of relatively constant value around the peaks as well as regions that change rapidly near the valleys.
Changing the phase and frequency of each sinusoid can emphasize (in color) ranges in the grayscale. For
instance, if all three transformations have the same phase and frequency, the output will be a grayscale
image. A small change in the phase between the three transformations produces little change in pixels
whose intensities correspond to peaks in the sinusoids, especially if the sinusoids have broad profiles
(low frequencies). Pixels with intensity values in the steep section of the sinusoids are assigned a much
stronger color content as a result of significant differences between the amplitudes of the three sinu-
soids caused by the phase displacement between them.
The image in Fig. 6.22(b) was obtained using the transformation functions in Fig. 6.23(a), which shows
the gray-level bands corresponding to the explosive, garment bag, and background, respectively. Note
that the explosive and background have quite different intensity levels, but they were both coded with
approximately the same color as a result of the periodicity of the sine waves. The image in Fig. 6.22(c)
was obtained with the transformation functions in Fig. 6.23(b). In this case, the explosives and garment
bag intensity bands were mapped by similar transformations, and thus received essentially the same

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 426 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a b
FIGURE 6.23
Red
Transformation
functions used to
obtain the
pseudocolor

Color
images in Green
Fig. 6.22.

Blue

Explosive Bag Explosive Bag

Background Background
Intensity Intensity

color assignments. Note that this mapping allows an observer to “see” through the explosives. The back-
ground mappings were about the same as those used for Fig. 6.22(b), producing almost identical color
assignments for the two pseudocolor images.

The approach in Fig. 6.21 is based on a single grayscale image. Often, it is of

interest to combine several grayscale images into a single color composite, as illus-
trated in Fig. 6.24. A frequent use of this approach is in multispectral image process-
ing, where different sensors produce individual grayscale images, each in a different
spectral band (see Example 6.6 below). The types of additional processing shown in
Fig. 6.24 can be techniques such as color balancing and spatial filtering, as discussed
later in this chapter. When coupled with background knowledge about the physical
characteristics of each band, color-coding in the manner just explained is a powerful
aid for human visual analysis of complex multispectral images.

EXAMPLE 6.6 : Color coding of multispectral images.

Figures 6.25(a) through (d) show four satellite images of the Washington, D.C., area, including part of
the Potomac River. The first three images are in the visible red (R), green (G), and blue (B) bands, and

FIGURE 6.24 g 1 (x, y)

A pseudocolor f 1 (x, y) Transformation T1
coding approach h R (x, y)
using multiple
grayscale images. g 2 (x, y)
The inputs are Additional
f 2 (x, y) Transformation T2
grayscale images. processing hG (x, y)
The outputs are
the three
components of an g K (x, y) hB (x, y)
RGB composite f K (x, y) Transformation TK
image.

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 6.3 Pseudocolor Image Processing 427

a b c
d e f
FIGURE 6.25 (a)–(d) Red (R), green (G), blue (B), and near-infrared (IR) components of a LANDSAT multispectral
image of the Washington, D.C. area. (e) RGB color composite image obtained using the IR, G, and B component
images. (f) RGB color composite image obtained using the R, IR, and B component images. (Original multispectral
images courtesy of NASA.)

the fourth is in the near infrared (IR) band (see Table 1.1 and Fig. 1.10). The latter band is responsive
to the biomass content of a scene, and we want to use this fact to create a composite RGB color image
in which vegetation is emphasized and the other components of the scene are displayed in more muted
tones.
Figure 6.25(e) is an RGB composite obtained by replacing the red image by infrared. As you see, veg-
etation shows as a bright red, and the other components of the scene, which had a weaker response in
the near-infrared band, show in pale shades of blue-green. Figure 6.25(f) is a similar image, but with the
green replaced by infrared. Here, vegetation shows in a bright green color, and the other components of
the scene show in purplish color shades, indicating that their major components are in the red and blue
bands. Although the last two images do not introduce any new physical information, these images are
much easier to interpret visually once it is known that the dominant component of the images are pixels
of areas heavily populated by vegetation.
The type of processing just illustrated uses the physical characteristics of a single band in a multi-
spectral image to emphasize areas of interest. The same approach can help visualize events of interest

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 428 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a
b
FIGURE 6.26
(a) Pseudocolor
rendition of
Jupiter Moon Io.
(b) A close-up.
(Courtesy of
NASA.)

in complex images in which the events are beyond human visual sensing capabilities. Figure 6.26 is an
excellent illustration of this. These are images of the Jupiter moon Io, shown in pseudocolor by combin-
ing several of the sensor images from the Galileo spacecraft, some of which are in spectral regions not
visible to the eye. However, by understanding the physical and chemical processes likely to affect sensor
response, it is possible to combine the sensed images into a meaningful pseudocolor map. One way to
combine the sensed image data is by how they show either differences in surface chemical composition
or changes in the way the surface reflects sunlight. For example, in the pseudocolor image in Fig. 6.26(b),
bright red depicts material newly ejected from an active volcano on Io, and the surrounding yellow
materials are older sulfur deposits. This image conveys these characteristics much more readily than
would be possible by analyzing the component images individually.

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 6.4 Basics of Full-Color Image Processing 429

6.4 BASICS OF FULL-COLOR IMAGE PROCESSING

6.4

In this section, we begin the study of processing methods for full-color images. The
techniques developed in the sections that follow are illustrative of how full-color
images are handled for a variety of image processing tasks. Full-color image process-
ing approaches fall into two major categories. In the first category, we process each
grayscale component image individually, then form a composite color image from
the individually processed components. In the second category, we work with color
pixels directly. Because full-color images have at least three components, color pix-
els are vectors. For example, in the RGB system, each color point can be interpreted
as a vector extending from the origin to that point in the RGB coordinate system
(see Fig. 6.7).
Let c represent an arbitrary vector in RGB color space:

⎡ cR ⎤ ⎡ R ⎤
c = ⎢⎢cG ⎥⎥ = ⎢⎢G ⎥⎥ (6-36)
⎢⎣ cB ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ B ⎥⎦

This equation indicates that the components of c are the RGB components of a
color image at a point. We take into account the fact that the colors of the pixels in
Although an RGB image an image are a function of spatial coordinates ( x, y) by using the notation
is composed of three
grayscale component
images, pixels in all three
images are registered
⎡ cR ( x, y ) ⎤ ⎡ R ( x, y ) ⎤
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
spatially. That is, a single c ( x, y ) = ⎢cG ( x, y )⎥ = ⎢G ( x, y )⎥ (6-37)
pair of spatial
coordinates, (x, y), ⎢⎣ cB ( x, y ) ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ B ( x, y ) ⎥⎦
addresses the same
pixel location in all three
images, as illustrated in
Fig. 6.27(b) below. For an image of size M × N , there are MN such vectors, c( x, y), for x = 0, 1, 2, … , M − 1
and y = 0, 1, 2, … , N − 1.
Equation (6-37) depicts a vector whose components are spatial variables x and
y. This is a frequent source of confusion that can be avoided by focusing on the fact
that our interest lies in spatial processes. That is, we are interested in image process-
ing techniques formulated in x and y. The fact that the pixels are now color pixels
introduces a factor that, in its easiest formulation, allows us to process a color image
by processing each of its component images separately, using standard grayscale
image processing methods. However, the results of individual color component pro-
cessing are not always equivalent to direct processing in color vector space, in which
case we must use approaches for processing the elements of color points directly.
When these points have more than two components, we call them voxels. We use the
terms vectors, points, and voxels interchangeably when the meaning is clear that we
are referring to images composed of more than one 2-D image.
In order for per-component-image and vector-based processing to be equivalent,
two conditions have to be satisfied: first, the process has to be applicable to both
vectors and scalars; second, the operation on each component of a vector (i.e., each
voxel) must be independent of the other components. As an illustration, Fig. 6.27
shows spatial neighborhood processing of grayscale and full-color images. Suppose

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 430 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a b
FIGURE 6.27
Spatial
neighborhoods Pixel Voxel
for grayscale
and RGB color (x, y)
(x, y)
images. Observe
2-D neighborhood 3-D neighborhood
in (b) that a single
pair of spatial
coordinates, ( x, y),
addresses the
same spatial
location in all
three images. Grayscale image RGB color image

that the process is neighborhood averaging. In Fig. 6.27(a), averaging would be done
by summing the intensities of all the pixels in the 2-D neighborhood, then dividing
the result by the total number of pixels in the neighborhood. In Fig. 6.27(b), averag-
ing would be done by summing all the voxels in the 3-D neighborhood, then divid-
ing the result by the total number of voxels in the neighborhood. Each of the three
component of the average voxel is the sum of the pixels in the single image neigh-
borhood centered on that location. But the same result would be obtained if the
averaging were done on the pixels of each image, independently, and then the sum of
the three values were added for each. Thus, spatial neighborhood averaging can be
carried out on a per-component-image or directly on RGB image voxels. The results
would be the same. In the following sections we develop methods for which the per-
component-image approach is suitable, and methods for which it is not.

6.5 COLOR TRANSFORMATIONS

6.5

The techniques described in this section, collectively called color transformations,

deal with processing the components of a color image within the context of a single
color model, as opposed to color transformations between color models, as in Sec-
tion 6.2.

FORMULATION
As with the intensity transformation techniques of Chapter 3, we model color trans-
formations for multispectral images using the general expression

si = Ti ( ri ) i = 1, 2,…, n (6-38)

where n is the total number of component images, ri are the intensity values of the
input component images, si are the spatially corresponding intensities in the output
component images, and Ti are a set of transformation or color mapping functions
that operate on ri to produce si . Equation (6-38) is applied individually to all pixels
in the input image. For example, in the case of RGB color images, n = 3, r1 , r2 , r3 are
the intensities values at a point in the input components images, and s1 , s2 , s3 are

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 6.5 Color Transformations 431

the corresponding transformed pixels in the output image. The fact that i is also a
subscript on T means that, in principle, we can implement a different transformation
for each input component image.
As an illustration, the first row of Fig. 6.28 shows a full color CMYK image of a
simple scene, and the second row shows its four component images, all normalized
to the range [0, 1]. We see that the strawberries are composed of large amounts of
magenta and yellow because the images corresponding to these two CMYK compo-
nents are the brightest. Black is used sparingly and is generally confined to the cof-
fee and shadows within the bowl of strawberries. The fourth row shows the equiva-
lent RGB images obtained from the CMYK images using Eqs. (6-13)-(6-15). Here
we see that the strawberries contain a large amount of red and very little (although
some) green and blue. From the RGB images, we obtained the CMY images in
the third row using Eq. (6-5). Note that these CMY images are slightly different
from the CMY images in the row above them. This is because the CMY images
in these two systems are different as a result of using K in one of them. The last
row of Fig. 6.28 shows the HSI components, obtained from the RGB images using
Eqs. (6-16)-(6-19). As expected, the intensity (I) component is a grayscale rendition
of the full-color original. The saturation image (S) is as expected also. The strawber-
ries are relatively pure in color; as a result, they show the highest saturation (least
dilution by white light) values of any of the other elements of the image. Finally,
we note some difficulty in interpreting the values of the hue (H) component image.
The problem is that (1) there is a discontinuity in the HSI model where 0° and 360°
meet [see Fig. 6.13(a)], and (2) hue is undefined for a saturation of 0 (i.e., for white,
black, and pure grays). The discontinuity of the model is most apparent around the
strawberries, which are depicted in gray level values near both black (0) and white
(1). The result is an unexpected mixture of highly contrasting gray levels to represent
a single color—red.
We can apply Eq. (6-38) to any of the color-space component images in Fig. 6.28.
In theory, any transformation can be performed in any color model. In practice, how-
ever, some operations are better suited to specific models. For a given transformation,
the effects of converting between representations must be factored into the decision
regarding the color space in which to implement it. For example, suppose that we
wish to modify the intensity of the full-color image in the first row of Fig. 6.28 by a
constant value, k in the range [0, 1]. In the HSI color space we need to modify only
the intensity component image:

s3 = kr3 (6-39)

and we let s1 = r1 and s2 = r2 . In terms of our earlier discussion note that we are using
two different transformation functions: T1 and T2 are identity transformations, and
T3 is a constant transformation.
In the RGB color space we need to modify all three components by the same
constant transformation:

si = kri i = 1, 2, 3 (6-40)

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 432 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

Full color image

Cyan Magenta Yellow Black

Cyan Magenta Yellow

Red Green Blue

Hue Saturation Intensity

FIGURE 6.28 A full-color image and its various color-space components. (Original image courtesy of MedData Interactive.)

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 6.5 Color Transformations 433

The CMY space requires a similar set of linear transformations (see Problem 6.16):

si = kri + (1 − k ) i = 1, 2, 3 (6-41)

Similarly, the transformations required to change the intensity of the CMYK image
is given by

⎧ri i = 1, 2, 3
si = ⎨ (6-42)
⎩kri + (1 − k ) i=4

This equation tells us that to change the intensity of a CMYK image, we only change
the fourth (K) component.
Figure 6.29(b) shows the result of applying the transformations in Eqs. (6-39)
through (6-42) to the full-color image of Fig. 6.28, using k = 0.7. The mapping func-
tions themselves are shown graphically in Figs. 6.29(c) through (h). Note that the
mapping function for CMYK consist of two parts, as do the functions for HSI; one of
the transformations handles one component, and the other does the rest. Although

1 1 1 1

k k

1k
R,G,B C,M,Y K C,M,Y
H,S I H,S
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
a b
c d e f g h
FIGURE 6.29 Adjusting the intensity of an image using color transformations. (a) Original image. (b) Result of decreas-
ing its intensity by 30% (i.e., letting k = 0.7). (c) The required RGB mapping function. (d)–(e) The required CMYK
mapping functions. (f) The required CMY mapping function. (g)–(h) The required HSI mapping functions. (Origi-
nal image courtesy of MedData Interactive.)

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 434 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

we used several different transformations, the net result of changing the intensity of
the color by a constant value was the same for all.
It is important to note that each transformation defined in Eqs. (6-39) through
(6-42) depends only on one component within its color space. For example, the red
output component, s1 , in Eq. (6-40) is independent of the green (r2 ) and blue (r3 )
inputs; it depends only on the red (r1 ) input. Transformations of this type are among
the simplest and most frequently used color processing tools. They can be carried
out on a per-color-component basis, as mentioned at the beginning of our discussion.
In the remainder of this section, we will examine several such transformations and
discuss a case in which the component transformation functions are dependent on
all the color components of the input image and, therefore, cannot be done on an
individual color-component basis.

COLOR COMPLEMENTS
The color circle (also called the color wheel) shown in Fig. 6.30 originated with Sir
Isaac Newton, who in the seventeenth century created its first form by joining the
ends of the color spectrum. The color circle is a visual representation of colors that
are arranged according to the chromatic relationship between them. The circle is
formed by placing the primary colors equidistant from each other. Then, the sec-
ondary colors are placed between the primaries, also in an equidistant arrangement.
The net result is that hues directly opposite one another on the color circle are com-
plements. Our interest in complements stems from the fact that they are analogous
to the grayscale negatives we studied in Section 3.2. As in the grayscale case, color
complements are useful for enhancing detail that is embedded in dark regions of
a color image—particularly when the regions are dominant in size. The following
example illustrates some of these concepts.

FIGURE 6.30 Blue Magenta

Color
complements on
the color circle.

nts
Cyan pleme Red
Com

Green Yellow

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 6.5 Color Transformations 435

EXAMPLE 6.7 : Computing color image complements.

Figures 6.31(a) and (c) show the full-color image from Fig. 6.28 and its color complement. The RGB
transformations used to compute the complement are plotted in Fig. 6.31(b). They are identical to the
grayscale negative transformation defined in Section 3.2. Note that the complement is reminiscent of
conventional photographic color film negatives. Reds of the original image are replaced by cyans in the
complement. When the original image is black, the complement is white, and so on. Each of the hues in
the complement image can be predicted from the original image using the color circle of Fig. 6.30, and
each of the RGB component transforms involved in the computation of the complement is a function
of only the corresponding input color component.
Unlike the intensity transformations of Fig. 6.29, the RGB complement transformation functions
used in this example do not have a straightforward HSI equivalent. It is left as an exercise (see Prob-
lem 6.19) to show that the saturation component of the complement cannot be computed from the satu-
ration component of the input image alone. Figure 6.31(d) shows an approximation of the complement
using the hue, saturation, and intensity transformations in Fig. 6.31(b). The saturation component of the
input image is unaltered; it is responsible for the visual differences between Figs. 6.31(c) and (d).

a b 1 1
c d
FIGURE 6.31
Color
complement
transformations.
(a) Original 0 R,G,B 0 H
image. 1 1
(b) Complement 1 1
transformation
functions.
(c) Complement
of (a) based on
the RGB mapping
functions. (d) An
0 S 0 I
approximation of
the RGB 1 1
complement using
HSI
transformations.

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 436 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

COLOR SLICING
Highlighting a specific range of colors in an image is useful for separating objects
from their surroundings. The basic idea is either to: (1) display the colors of interest
so that they stand out from the background; or (2) use the region defined by the
colors as a mask for further processing. The most straightforward approach is to
extend the intensity slicing techniques of Section 3.2. However, because a color pixel
is an n-dimensional quantity, the resulting color transformation functions are more
complicated than their grayscale counterparts in Fig. 3.11. In fact, the required trans-
formations are more complex than the color component transforms considered thus
far. This is because all practical color-slicing approaches require each pixel’s trans-
formed color components to be a function of all n original pixel’s color components.
One of the simplest ways to “slice” a color image is to map the colors outside
some range of interest into a nonprominent neutral color. If the colors of interest
are enclosed by a cube (or hypercube for n > 3) of width W and centered at a pro-
totypical (e.g., average) color with components ( a1 , a2 ,…, an ) , the necessary set of
transformations are given by

⎧ ⎡ W⎤
⎪0.5 if ⎢ rj − a j > 2 ⎥
si = ⎨ ⎣ ⎦any 1≤ j ≤ n (6-43)
⎪r otherwise i = 1, 2,…, n
⎩ i
These transformations highlight the colors around the prototype by forcing all
other colors to the midpoint of the reference color space (this is an arbitrarily cho-
sen neutral point). For the RGB color space, for example, a suitable neutral point
is middle gray or color (0.5, 0.5, 0.5).
If a sphere is used to specify the colors of interest, Eq. (6-43) becomes

⎧ n
∑ (rj − aj )
2
⎪0.5 if > R02
si = ⎨ j =1 i = 1, 2,…, n (6-44)
⎪r otherwise
⎩ i
Here, R0 is the radius of the enclosing sphere (or hypersphere for n > 3) and
( a1 , a2 ,…, an ) are the components of its center (i.e., the prototypical color). Other
useful variations of Eqs. (6-43) and (6-44) include implementing multiple color pro-
totypes and reducing the intensity of the colors outside the region of interest—rath-
er than setting them to a neutral constant.

EXAMPLE 6.8 : Color slicing.

Equations (6-43) and (6-44) can be used to separate the strawberries in Fig. 6.29(a) from their sepals, cup,
bowl, and other background elements. Figures 6.32(a) and (b) show the results of using both transfor-
mations. In each case, a prototype red with RGB color coordinate (0.6863, 0.1608, 0.1922) was selected
from the most prominent strawberry. Parameters W and R0 were chosen so that the highlighted region
would not expand to other portions of the image. The actual values used, W = 0.2549 and R0 = 0.1765,
were determined interactively. Note that the sphere-based transformation of Eq. (6-44) performed
slightly better, in the sense that it includes more of the strawberries’ red areas. A sphere of radius 0.1765

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 6.5 Color Transformations 437

a b
FIGURE 6.32 Color-slicing transformations that detect (a) reds within an RGB cube of width
W = 0.2549 centered at (0.6863, 0.1608, 0.1922), and (b) reds within an RGB sphere of radius
0.1765 centered at the same point. Pixels outside the cube and sphere were replaced by color
(0.5, 0.5, 0.5).

does not completely enclose a cube of width 0.2549, but it is not small enough to be completely enclosed
by the cube either. In Section 6.7, and later in Chapter 10, you will learn more advanced techniques for
using color and other multispectral information to extract objects from their background.

TONE AND COLOR CORRECTIONS

Problems involving an image’s tonal range need to be corrected before color irregu-
larities, such as over- and under-saturated colors, can be resolved, The tonal range of
an image, also called its key type, refers to its general distribution of color intensities.
Most of the information in high-key images is concentrated at high (or light) intensi-
ties; the colors of low-key images are located predominantly at low intensities; and
middle-key images lie in between. As in the grayscale case, it is often desirable to
distribute the intensities of a color image equally between the highlights and the
shadows. The following examples illustrate a variety of color transformations for the
correction of tonal and color imbalances.

EXAMPLE 6.9 : Tonal transformations.

Transformations for modifying image tones normally are selected interactively. The idea is to adjust
experimentally the image’s brightness and contrast to provide maximum detail over a suitable range of
intensities. The colors themselves are not changed. In the RGB and CMY(K) spaces, this means map-
ping all the color components, except K, with the same transformation function (see Fig. 6.29); in the
HSI color space, only the intensity component is modified, as noted in the previous section.
Figure 6.33 shows typical RGB transformations used for correcting three common tonal imbalances—
flat, light, and dark images. The S-shaped curve in the first row of the figure is ideal for boosting contrast

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 438 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

R,G,B
Flat Corrected 0 1

R,G,B
Light Corrected 0 1

R,G,B
Dark Corrected 0 1

FIGURE 6.33 Tonal corrections for flat, light (high key), and dark (low key) color images. Adjusting the red, green, and
blue components equally does not always alter the image hues significantly.

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 6.5 Color Transformations 439

[see Fig. 3.2(a)]. Its midpoint is anchored so that highlight and shadow areas can be lightened and dark-
ened, respectively. (The inverse of this curve can be used to correct excessive contrast.) The transforma-
tions in the second and third rows of the figure correct light and dark images, and are reminiscent of
the power-law transformations in Fig. 3.6. Although the color components are discrete, as are the actual
transformation functions, the transformation functions themselves are displayed and manipulated as
continuous quantities—typically constructed from piecewise linear or higher order (for smoother map-
pings) polynomials. Note that the keys of the images in Fig. 6.33 are visually evident; they could also be
determined using the histograms of the images’ color components.

EXAMPLE 6.10 : Color balancing.

Any color imbalances are addressed after the tonal characteristics of an image have been corrected.
Although color imbalances can be determined directly by analyzing a known color in an image with
a color spectrometer, accurate visual assessments are possible when white areas, where the RGB or
CMY(K) components should be equal, are present. As Fig. 6.34 shows, skin tones are excellent subjects
for visual color assessments because humans are highly perceptive of proper skin color. Vivid colors,
such as bright red objects, are of little value when it comes to visual color assessment.
There are a variety of ways to correct color imbalances. When adjusting the color components of an
image, it is important to realize that every action affects its overall color balance. That is, the perception
of one color is affected by its surrounding colors. The color wheel of Fig. 6.30 can be used to predict
how one color component will affect others. Based on the color wheel, for example, the proportion of
any color can be increased by decreasing the amount of the opposite (or complementary) color in the
image. Similarly, it can be increased by raising the proportion of the two immediately adjacent colors
or decreasing the percentage of the two colors adjacent to the complement. Suppose, for instance, that
there is too much magenta in an RGB image. It can be decreased: (1) by removing both red and blue, or
(2) by adding green.
Figure 6.34 shows the transformations used to correct simple CMYK output imbalances. Note that
the transformations depicted are the functions required for correcting the images; the inverses of these
functions were used to generate the associated color imbalances. Together, the images are analogous to
a color ring-around print of a darkroom environment and are useful as a reference tool for identifying
color printing problems. Note, for example, that too much red can be due to excessive magenta (per the
bottom left image) or too little cyan (as shown in the rightmost image of the second row).

HISTOGRAM PROCESSING OF COLOR IMAGES

Unlike the interactive enhancement approaches of the previous section, the gray-
level histogram processing transformations of Section 3.3 can be applied to color
images in an automated way. Recall that histogram equalization automatically
determines a transformation that seeks to produce an image with a uniform histo-
gram of intensity values. We showed in Section 3.3 that histogram processing can be
quite successful at handling low-, high-, and middle-key images (for example, see
Fig. 3.20). As you might suspect, it is generally unwise to histogram equalize the
component images of a color image independently. This results in erroneous color. A
more logical approach is to spread the color intensities uniformly, leaving the colors
themselves (e.g., hues) unchanged. The following example shows that the HSI color
space is ideally suited to this type of approach.

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 440 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

Original/Corrected

1 1 1 1
Heavy in Weak in Heavy in Weak in
black black cyan cyan

B B C C
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1

1 1 1 1
Heavy in Weak in Heavy in Weak in
magenta magenta yellow yellow

M M Y Y
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
FIGURE 6.34 Color balancing a CMYK image.

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 6.5 Color Transformations 441

a b 1 1
c d
FIGURE 6.35
Histogram
equalization
(followed by H S
saturation 0 1 0 1
adjustment) in the
Histogram before processing
HSI color space. 1 (median  0.36)

0.5
Histogram after processing
I (median  0.5)
0 0.36 1

EXAMPLE 6.11 : Histogram equalization in the HSI color space.

Figure 6.35(a) shows a color image of a caster stand containing cruets and shakers whose intensity com-
ponent spans the entire (normalized) range of possible values, [0, 1]. As can be seen in the histogram of
its intensity component prior to processing [see Fig. 6.35(b)], the image contains a large number of dark
colors that reduce the median intensity to 0.36. Histogram equalizing the intensity component, without
altering the hue and saturation, resulted in the image shown in Fig. 6.35(c). Note that the overall image
is significantly brighter, and that several moldings and the grain of the wooden table on which the caster
is sitting are now visible. Figure 6.35(b) shows the intensity histogram of the new image, as well as the
intensity transformation used to equalize the intensity component [see Eq. (3-15)].
Although intensity equalization did not alter the values of hue and saturation of the image, it did
impact the overall color perception. Note, in particular, the loss of vibrancy in the oil and vinegar in the
cruets. Figure 6.35(d) shows the result of partially correcting this by increasing the image’s saturation
component, subsequent to histogram equalization, using the transformation in Fig. 6.35(b). This type of

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 442 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

adjustment is common when working with the intensity component in HSI space because changes in
intensity usually affect the relative appearance of colors in an image.

6.6 COLOR IMAGE SMOOTHING AND SHARPENING

6.6

The next step beyond transforming each pixel of a color image without regard to its
neighbors (as in the previous section) is to modify its value based on the character-
istics of the surrounding pixels. In this section, the basics of this type of neighbor-
hood processing will be illustrated within the context of color image smoothing and
sharpening.

COLOR IMAGE SMOOTHING

With reference to Fig. 6.27(a) and the discussion in Sections 3.4 and 3.5, grayscale
image smoothing can be viewed as a spatial filtering operation in which the coef-
ficients of the filtering kernel have the same value. As the kernel is slid across the
image to be smoothed, each pixel is replaced by the average of the pixels in the
neighborhood encompassed by the kernel. As Fig. 6.27(b) shows, this concept is eas-
ily extended to the processing of full-color images. The principal difference is that
instead of scalar intensity values, we must deal with component vectors of the form
given in Eq. (6-37).
Let Sxy denote the set of coordinates defining a neighborhood centered at ( x, y)
in an RGB color image. The average of the RGB component vectors in this neigh-
borhood is

1
c ( x, y ) = ∑ c ( s, t ) (6-45)
K ( s, t ) ∈Sxy

It follows from Eq. (6-37) and the properties of vector addition that

⎡1 ⎤
⎢ ∑ R ( s, t ) ⎥
⎢ K ( s, t )∈Sxy ⎥
⎢ ⎥
1
c ( x, y ) = ⎢ ∑ G ( s, t )⎥ (6-46)
⎢ K ( s, t )∈Sxy ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢1
⎢K ∑ B ( ) ⎥⎥
s, t
⎣ ( s, t )∈Sxy ⎦

We recognize the components of this vector as the scalar images that would be
obtained by independently smoothing each plane of the original RGB image using
conventional grayscale neighborhood processing. Thus, we conclude that smoothing
by neighborhood averaging can be carried out on a per-color-plane basis. The result
is the same as when the averaging is performed using RGB color vectors.

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 6.6 Color Image Smoothing and Sharpening 443

a b
c d
FIGURE 6.36
(a) RGB image.
(b) Red
component image.
(c)Green
component.
(d) Blue
component.

EXAMPLE 6.12 : Color image smoothing by neighborhood averaging.

Consider the RGB color image in Fig. 6.36(a). Its three component images are shown in Figs. 6.36(b)
through (d). Figures 6.37(a) through (c) show the HSI components of the image. Based on the discus-
sion in the previous paragraph, we smoothed each component image of the RGB image in Fig. 6.36
independently using a 5 × 5 averaging kernel. We then combined the individually smoothed images
to form the smoothed, full-color RGB result in Fig. 6.38(a). Note that this image appears as we would
expect from performing a spatial smoothing operation, as in the examples given in Section 3.5.
In Section 6.2, we mentioned that an important advantage of the HSI color model is that it decouples
intensity and color information. This makes it suitable for many grayscale processing techniques and
suggests that it might be more efficient to smooth only the intensity component of the HSI repre-
sentation in Fig. 6.37. To illustrate the merits and/or consequences of this approach, we next smooth
only the intensity component (leaving the hue and saturation components unmodified) and convert the
processed result to an RGB image for display. The smoothed color image is shown in Fig. 6.38(b). Note

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 444 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a b c
FIGURE 6.37 HSI components of the RGB color image in Fig. 6.36(a). (a) Hue. (b) Saturation. (c) Intensity.

that it is similar to Fig. 6.38(a), but, as you can see from the difference image in Fig. 6.38(c), the two
smoothed images are not identical. This is because in Fig. 6.38(a) the color of each pixel is the average
color of the pixels in the neighborhood. On the other hand, by smoothing only the intensity component
image in Fig. 6.38(b), the hue and saturation of each pixel was not affected and, therefore, the pixel
colors did not change. It follows from this observation that the difference between the two smoothing
approaches would become more pronounced as a function of increasing kernel size.

COLOR IMAGE SHARPENING

In this section we consider image sharpening using the Laplacian (see Section 3.6).
From vector analysis, we know that the Laplacian of a vector is defined as a vector

a b c
FIGURE 6.38 Image smoothing with a 5 × 5 averaging kernel. (a) Result of processing each RGB component image.
(b) Result of processing the intensity component of the HSI image and converting to RGB. (c) Difference between
the two results.

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 6.7 Using Color in Image Segmentation 445

whose components are equal to the Laplacian of the individual scalar components
of the input vector. In the RGB color system, the Laplacian of vector c in Eq. (6-37)
is
⎡ ∇ 2 R ( x, y ) ⎤
⎢ ⎥
∇ 2 ⎡⎣c ( x, y )⎤⎦ = ⎢∇ 2G ( x, y )⎥ (6-47)
⎢ 2 ⎥
⎢⎣ ∇ B ( x, y ) ⎥⎦

which, as in the previous section, tells us that we can compute the Laplacian of a
full-color image by computing the Laplacian of each component image separately.

EXAMPLE 6.13 : Image sharpening using the Laplacian.

Figure 6.39(a) was obtained using Eq. (3-54) and the kernel in Fig. 3.45(c) to compute the Laplacians of
the RGB component images in Fig. 6.36. These results were combined to produce the sharpened full-
color result. Figure 6.39(b) shows a similarly sharpened image based on the HSI components in Fig. 6.37.
This result was generated by combining the Laplacian of the intensity component with the unchanged
hue and saturation components. The difference between the RGB and HSI sharpened images is shown
in Fig. 6.39(c). The reason for the discrepancies between the two images is as in Example 6.12.

6.7 USING COLOR IN IMAGE SEGMENTATION

6.7

Segmentation is a process that partitions an image into regions. Although segmenta-

tion is the topic of Chapters 10 and 11, we consider color segmentation briefly here
for the sake of continuity. You will have no difficulty following the discussion.

a b c
FIGURE 6.39 Image sharpening using the Laplacian. (a) Result of processing each RGB channel. (b) Result of process-
ing the HSI intensity component and converting to RGB. (c) Difference between the two results.

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 446 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

SEGMENTATION IN HSI COLOR SPACE

If we wish to segment an image based on color and, in addition, we want to carry out
the process on individual planes, it is natural to think first of the HSI space because
color is conveniently represented in the hue image. Typically, saturation is used as a
masking image in order to isolate further regions of interest in the hue image. The
intensity image is used less frequently for segmentation of color images because it
carries no color information. The following example is typical of how segmentation
is performed in the HSI color space.

EXAMPLE 6.14 : Segmenting a color image in HSI color space.

Suppose that it is of interest to segment the reddish region in the lower left of the image in Fig. 6.40(a).
Figures 6.40(b) through (d) are its HSI component images. Note by comparing Figs. 6.40(a) and (b) that
the region in which we are interested has relatively high values of hue, indicating that the colors are on
the blue-magenta side of red (see Fig. 6.11). Figure 6.40(e) shows a binary mask generated by threshold-
ing the saturation image with a threshold equal to 10% of the maximum value in that image. Any pixel
value greater than the threshold was set to 1 (white). All others were set to 0 (black).
Figure 6.40(f) is the product of the mask with the hue image, and Fig. 6.40(g) is the histogram of the
product image (note that the grayscale is in the range [0, 1]). We see in the histogram that high values
(which are the values of interest) are grouped at the very high end of the grayscale, near 1.0. The result
of thresholding the product image with threshold value of 0.9 resulted in the binary image in Fig. 6.40(h).
The spatial location of the white points in this image identifies the points in the original image that
have the reddish hue of interest. This was far from a perfect segmentation because there are points in
the original image that we certainly would say have a reddish hue, but that were not identified by this
segmentation method. However, it can be determined by experimentation that the regions shown in
white in Fig. 6.40(h) are about the best this method can do in identifying the reddish components of the
original image. The segmentation method discussed in the following section is capable of yielding better
results.

SEGMENTATION IN RGB SPACE

Although working in HSI space is more intuitive in the sense of colors being repre-
sented in a more familiar format, segmentation is one area in which better results
generally are obtained by using RGB color vectors (see Fig. 6.7). The approach is
straightforward. Suppose that the objective is to segment objects of a specified color
range in an RGB image. Given a set of sample color points representative of the col-
ors of interest, we obtain an estimate of the “average” color that we wish to segment.
Let this average color be denoted by the RGB vector a. The objective of segmenta-
tion is to classify each RGB pixel in a given image as having a color in the specified
range or not. In order to perform this comparison, it is necessary to have a measure
of similarity. One of the simplest measures is the Euclidean distance. Let z denote
an arbitrary point in RGB space. We say that z is similar to a if the distance between
them is less than a specified threshold, D0 . The Euclidean distance between z and a
is given by

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 6.7 Using Color in Image Segmentation 447

a b
c d FIGURE 6.40 Image segmentation in HSI space. (a) Original. (b) Hue. (c) Saturation.
e f (d) Intensity. (e) Binary saturation mask (black = 0). (f) Product of (b) and (e). (g) His-
g h togram of (f). (h) Segmentation of red components from (a).

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 448 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

a b c B B B

FIGURE 6.41
Three approaches
for enclosing data
regions for RGB
vector
segmentation.
G G G

R R R

D(z, a) =储 z − a 储
1
= ⎡( z − a ) ( z − a ) ⎤ 2
T
(6-48)
⎣ ⎦
1

( )
= ⎡ ( z R − a R ) + ( zG − a G ) + z B − a B ⎤
2 2 2 2
⎢⎣ ⎥⎦

where the subscripts R, G, and B denote the RGB components of vectors a and z.
The locus of points such that D ( z, a ) ≤ D0 is a solid sphere of radius D0 , as illustrated
in Fig. 6.41(a). Points contained within the sphere satisfy the specified color crite-
rion; points outside the sphere do not. Coding these two sets of points in the image
with, say, black and white, produces a binary segmented image.
This equation is called
the Mahalanobis dis-
A useful generalization of Eq. (6-48) is a distance measure of the form
tance. You are seeing it
1

D ( z, a ) = ⎡( z − a ) C−1 ( z − a )⎤
used here for multivariate T 2
(6-49)
thresholding (see
Section 10.3 regarding
⎣ ⎦
thresholding).
where C is the covariance matrix (see Section 11.5) of the samples chosen to be
representative of the color range we wish to segment. The locus of points such that
D ( z, a ) ≤ D0 describes a solid 3-D elliptical body [Fig. 6.41(b)] with the important
property that its principal axes are oriented in the direction of maximum data spread.
When C = I, the 3 × 3 identity matrix, Eq. (6-49) reduces to Eq. (6-48). Segmenta-
tion is as described in the preceding paragraph.
Because distances are positive and monotonic, we can work with the distance
squared instead, thus avoiding square root computations. However, implementing
Eq. (6-48) or (6-49) is computationally expensive for images of practical size, even
if the square roots are not computed. A compromise is to use a bounding box, as
illustrated in Fig. 6.41(c). In this approach, the box is centered on a, and its dimen-
sions along each of the color axes is chosen proportional to the standard deviation
of the samples along each of the axis. We use the sample data to compute the stan-
dard deviations, which are the parameters used for segmentation with this approach.
Given an arbitrary color point, we segment it by determining whether or not it is on
the surface or inside the box, as with the distance formulations. However, determin-
ing whether a color point is inside or outside a box is much simpler computationally

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 6.7 Using Color in Image Segmentation 449

when compared to a spherical or elliptical enclosure. Note that the preceding discus-
sion is a generalization of the color-slicing method introduced in Section 6.5.

EXAMPLE 6.15 : Color segmentation in RGB color space.

The rectangular region shown Fig. 6.42(a) contains samples of reddish colors we wish to segment out
of the color image. This is the same problem we considered in Example 6.14 using hue, but now we
approach the problem using RGB color vectors. The approach followed was to compute the mean vec-
tor a using the color points contained within the rectangle in Fig. 6.42(a), and then to compute the
standard deviation of the red, green, and blue values of those samples. A box was centered at a, and its
dimensions along each of the RGB axes were selected as 1.25 times the standard deviation of the data
along the corresponding axis. For example, let s R denote the standard deviation of the red components

a
b
FIGURE 6.42
Segmentation in
RGB space.
(a) Original image
with colors of
interest shown
enclosed by a
rectangle.
(b) Result of
segmentation
in RGB vector
space. Compare
with Fig. 6.40(h).

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 450 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

of the sample points. Then the dimensions of the box along the R-axis extended from ( aR − 1.25s R ) to
( aR + 1.25sR ) , where aR is the red component of average vector a. Figure 6.42(b) shows the result of
coding each point in the color image as white if it was on the surface or inside the box, and as black
otherwise. Note how the segmented region was generalized from the color samples enclosed by the
rectangle. In fact, by comparing Figs. 6.42(b) and 6.40(h), we see that segmentation in the RGB vector
space yielded results that are much more accurate, in the sense that they correspond much more closely
with what we would define as “reddish” points in the original color image. This result is not unexpected,
because in the RGB space we used three color variables, as opposed to just one in the HSI space.

COLOR EDGE DETECTION

As we will discuss in Section 10.2, edge detection is an important tool for image
segmentation. In this section, we are interested in the issue of computing edges on
individual component images, as opposed to computing edges directly in color vec-
tor space.
We introduced edge detection by gradient operators in Section 3.6, when discuss-
ing image sharpening. Unfortunately, the gradient discussed there is not defined for
vector quantities. Thus, we know immediately that computing the gradient on indi-
vidual images and then using the results to form a color image will lead to erroneous
results. A simple example will help illustrate the reason why.
Consider the two M × M color images (M odd) in Figs. 6.43(d) and (h), com-
posed of the three component images in Figs. 6.43(a) through (c) and (e) through (g),
respectively. If, for example, we compute the gradient image of each of the com-
ponent images using Eq. (3-58), then add the results to form the two correspond-
ing RGB gradient images, the value of the gradient at point [(M + 1) 2 , (M + 1) 2 ]
would be the same in both cases. Intuitively, we would expect the gradient at that
point to be stronger for the image in Fig. 6.43(d) because the edges of the R, G,
and B images are in the same direction in that image, as opposed to the image
in Fig. 6.43(h), in which only two of the edges are in the same direction. Thus we
see from this simple example that processing the three individual planes to form
a composite gradient image can yield erroneous results. If the problem is one of
just detecting edges, then the individual-component approach can yield acceptable
results. If accuracy is an issue, however, then obviously we need a new definition of
the gradient applicable to vector quantities. We discuss next a method proposed by
Di Zenzo [1986] for doing this.
The problem at hand is to define the gradient (magnitude and direction) of the
vector c in Eq. (6-37) at any point ( x, y). As we just mentioned, the gradient we
studied in Section 3.6 is applicable to a scalar function f ( x, y); it is not applicable
to vector functions. The following is one of the various ways in which we can extend
the concept of a gradient to vector functions. Recall that for a scalar function f ( x, y),
the gradient is a vector pointing in the direction of maximum rate of change of f at
coordinates ( x, y).
Let r, g, and b be unit vectors along the R, G, and B axis of RGB color space (see
Fig. 6.7), and define the vectors

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 6.7 Using Color in Image Segmentation 451

a b c d
e f g h
FIGURE 6.43 (a)–(c) R, G, and B component images, and (d) resulting RGB color image. (e)–(g) R, G, and B compo-
nent images, and (h) resulting RGB color image.

∂R ∂G ∂B
u= r+ g+ b (6-50)
∂x ∂x ∂x
and
∂R ∂G ∂B
v= r+ g+ b (6-51)
∂y ∂y ∂y

Let the quantities g xx , g yy , and g xy be defined in terms of the dot product of these
vectors, as follows:
2 2 2
∂R ∂G ∂B
g xx = u ⋅ u = uT u = + + (6-52)
∂x ∂x ∂x

2 2 2
∂R ∂G ∂B
g yy = v ⋅ v = vT v = + + (6-53)
∂y ∂y ∂y
and

∂R ∂R ∂G ∂G ∂B ∂B
g xy = u ⋅ v = uT v = + + (6-54)
∂x ∂y ∂x ∂y ∂x ∂y

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 452 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

Keep in mind that R, G, and B, and consequently the g’s, are functions of x and y.
Using this notation, it can be shown (Di Zenzo [1986]) that the direction of maxi-
mum rate of change of c( x, y) is given by the angle

1 ⎡ 2 g xy ⎤
u ( x, y ) = tan −1 ⎢ ⎥ (6-55)
2 ⎢⎣ g xx − g yy ⎥⎦
and that the value of the rate of change at ( x, y) in the direction of u( x, y) is given by
1
⎧1 ⎫2
( ) ( )
Fu ( x, y ) = ⎨ ⎡⎣ g xx + g yy + g xx − g yy cos 2u ( x, y ) + 2 g xy sin 2u ( x, y )⎤⎦ ⎬
⎩2 ⎭
(6-56)

Because tan ( a ) = tan ( a ± p ) , if u0 is a solution to Eq. (6-55), so is u0 ± p 2 . Fur-

thermore, Fu = Fu + p , so F has to be computed only for values of u in the half-open
interval [0, p). The fact that Eq. (6-55) gives two values 90° apart means that this
equation associates with each point ( x, y) a pair of orthogonal directions. Along one
of those directions F is maximum, and it is minimum along the other. The deriva-
tion of these results is rather lengthy, and we would gain little in terms of the fun-
damental objective of our current discussion by detailing it here. Consult the paper
by Di Zenzo [1986] for details. The Sobel operators discussed in Section 3.6 can
be used to compute the partial derivatives required for implementing Eqs. (6-52)
through (6-54).

EXAMPLE 6.16 : Edge detection in RGB vector space.

Figure 6.44(b) is the gradient of the image in Fig. 6.44(a), obtained using the vector method just dis-
cussed. Figure 6.44(c) shows the image obtained by computing the gradient of each RGB component
image and forming a composite gradient image by adding the corresponding values of the three com-
ponent images at each coordinate ( x, y). The edge detail of the vector gradient image is more complete
than the detail in the individual-plane gradient image in Fig. 6.44(c); for example, see the detail around
the subject’s right eye. The image in Fig. 6.44(d) shows the difference between the two gradient images
at each point ( x, y). It is important to note that both approaches yielded reasonable results. Whether
the extra detail in Fig. 6.44(b) is worth the added computational burden over the Sobel operator com-
putations can only be determined by the requirements of a given problem. Figure 6.45 shows the three
component gradient images, which, when added and scaled, were used to obtain Fig. 6.44(c).

6.8 NOISE IN COLOR IMAGES

6.8

The noise models discussed in Section 5.2 are applicable to color images. Usually, the
noise content of a color image has the same characteristics in each color channel, but
it is possible for color channels to be affected differently by noise. One possibility is
for the electronics of a particular channel to malfunction. However, different noise
levels are more likely caused by differences in the relative strength of illumination
available to each of the color channels. For example, use of a red filter in a CCD
camera will reduce the strength of illumination detected by the red sensing elements.
CCD sensors are noisier at lower levels of illumination, so the resulting red com-

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 6.8 Noise in Color Images 453

a b
c d
FIGURE 6.44
(a) RGB image.
(b) Gradient
computed in RGB
color vector space.
(c) Gradient
image formed by
the elementwise
sum of three
individual
gradient images,
each computed
using the Sobel
operators.
(d) Difference
between (b) and
(c).

a b c
FIGURE 6.45 Component gradient images of the color image in Fig. 6.44. (a) Red component, (b) green component,
and (c) blue component. These three images were added and scaled to produce the image in Fig. 6.44(c).

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 454 Chapter 6 Color Image Processing

ponent of an RGB image would tend to be noisier than the other two component
images in this situation.

EXAMPLE 6.17 : Illustration of the effects of noise when converting noisy RGB images to HSI.
In this example, we take a brief look at noise in color images and how noise carries over when convert-
ing from one color model to another. Figures 6.46(a) through (c) show the three color planes of an RGB
image corrupted by additive Gaussian noise, and Fig. 6.46(d) is the composite RGB image. Note that
fine grain noise such as this tends to be less visually noticeable in a color image than it is in a grayscale
image. Figures 6.47(a) through (c) show the result of converting the RGB image in Fig. 6.46(d) to HSI.
Compare these results with the HSI components of the original image (see Fig. 6.37) and note how sig-
nificantly degraded the hue and saturation components of the noisy image are. This was caused by the
nonlinearity of the cos and min operations in Eqs. (6-17) and (6-18), respectively. On the other hand,
the intensity component in Fig. 6.47(c) is slightly smoother than any of the three noisy RGB component
images. This is because the intensity image is the average of the RGB images, as indicated in Eq. (6-19).
(Recall the discussion in Section 2.6 regarding the fact that image averaging reduces random noise.)

a b
c d
FIGURE 6.46
(a)–(c) Red,
green, and blue
8-bit component
images
corrupted by
additive
Gaussian noise of
mean 0 and stan-
dard deviation of
28 intensity levels.
(d) Resulting
RGB image.
[Compare (d)
with Fig. 6.44(a).]

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 6.9 Color Image Compression 455

a b c
FIGURE 6.47 HSI components of the noisy color image in Fig. 6.46(d). (a) Hue. (b) Saturation. (c) Intensity.

In cases when, say, only one RGB channel is affected by noise, conversion to HSI spreads the noise to
all HSI component images. Figure 6.48 shows an example. Figure 6.48(a) shows an RGB image whose
green component image is corrupted by salt-and-pepper noise, with a probability of either salt or pepper
equal to 0.05. The HSI component images in Figs. 6.48(b) through (d) show clearly how the noise spread
from the green RGB channel to all the HSI images. Of course, this is not unexpected because computa-
tion of the HSI components makes use of all RGB components, as discussed in Section 6.2.

As is true of the processes we have discussed thus far, filtering of full-color images
can be carried out on a per-image basis, or directly in color vector space, depending
on the process. For example, noise reduction by using an averaging filter is the pro-
cess discussed in Section 6.6, which we know gives the same result in vector space as
it does if the component images are processed independently. However, other filters
cannot be formulated in this manner. Examples include the class of order statistics
filters discussed in Section 5.3. For instance, to implement a median filter in color
vector space it is necessary to find a scheme for ordering vectors in a way that the
median makes sense. While this was a simple process when dealing with scalars, the
process is considerably more complex when dealing with vectors. A discussion of
vector ordering is beyond the scope of our discussion here, but the book by Platani-
otis and Venetsanopoulos [2000] is a good reference on vector ordering and some of
the filters based on the concept of ordering.

6.9 COLOR IMAGE COMPRESSION

6.9

Because the number of bits required to represent color is typically three to four
times greater than the number employed in the representation of gray levels, data
compression plays a central role in the storage and transmission of color images.
With respect to the RGB, CMY(K), and HSI images of the previous sections, the
data that are the object of any compression are the components of each color pixel
(e.g., the red, green, and blue components of the pixels in an RGB image); they are

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