s=T(r)

where r is the pixels of the input image and s is the pixels of the output image. T is a
transformation function that maps each value of „r‟ to each value of „s‟.
For example, if T(r) has the form shown in Fig. 2.2(a), the effect of this transformation would
be to produce an image of higher contrast than the original by darkening the levels below m
and brightening the levels above m in the original image. In this technique, known as contrast
stretching, the values of r below m are compressed by the transformation function into a
narrow range of s, toward [Link] opposite effect takes place for values of r above m.
In the limiting case shown in Fig. 2.2(b), T(r) produces a two-level (binary) image. A
mapping of this form is called a thresholding function.
One of the principal approaches in this formulation is based on the use of so-called
masks (also referred to as filters, kernels, templates, or windows). Basically, a mask is a small
(say, 3*3) 2-D array, such as the one shown in Fig. 2.1, in which the values of the mask
coefficients determine the nature of the process, such as image sharpening. Enhancement
techniques based on this type of approach often are referred to as mask processing or
filtering.

Fig. 2.2 Gray level transformation functions for contrast enhancement.

Image enhancement can be done through gray level transformations which are
discussed below.
BASIC GRAY LEVEL TRANSFORMATIONS:
 Image negative
 Log transformations
 Power lawtransformations
 Piecewise-Linear transformationfunctions
LINEAR TRANSFORMATION:
First we will look at the linear transformation. Linear transformation includes simple
identity and negative transformation. Identity transformation has been discussed in our

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In this case the following transition has been done.

s = (L – 1) – r
since the input image of Einstein is an 8 bpp image, so the number of levels in this image are
256. Putting 256 in the equation, we get this

s = 255 – r
So each value is subtracted by 255 and the result image has been shown above. So what
happens is that, the lighter pixels become dark and the darker picture becomes light. And it
results in image negative.
It has been shown in the graph below.

Fig. Negative transformations.

LOGARITHMIC TRANSFORMATIONS:
Logarithmic transformation further contains two type of transformation. Log transformation
and inverse log transformation.
LOG TRANSFORMATIONS:
The log transformations can be defined by this formula
s = c log(r + 1).
Where s and r are the pixel values of the output and the input image and c is a constant. The
value 1 is added to each of the pixel value of the input image because if there is a pixel
intensity of 0 in the image, then log (0) is equal to infinity. So 1 is added, to make the
minimum value at least 1.
During log transformation, the dark pixels in an image are expanded as compare to the
higher pixel values. The higher pixel values are kind of compressed in log transformation.
This result in following image enhancement.
An another way of representing LOG TRANSFORMATIONS: Enhance details in the darker regions of an
image at the expense of detail in brighter regions.
T(f) = C * log (1+r)
 Here C is constant and r ≥ 0.

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  The shape of the curve shows that this transformation maps the narrow range of low gray level
values in the input image into a wider range of output image.
 The opposite is true for high level values of input image.

POWER – LAW TRANSFORMATIONS:

There are further two transformation is power law transformations, that include nth
power and nth root transformation. These transformations can be given by the expression:
s=crγ
This symbol γ is called gamma, due to which this transformation is also known as
gamma transformation.
Variation in the value of γ varies the enhancement of the images. Different display
devices / monitors have their own gamma correction, that‟s why they display their image at
different intensity.
γ
where c and g are positive constants. Sometimes Eq. (6) is written as S = C (r +ε)
to account for an offset (that is, a measurable output when the input is zero). Plots of s versus
r for various values of γ are shown in Fig. 2.10. As in the case of the log transformation,
power-law curves with fractional values of γ map a narrow range of dark input values into a
wider range of output values, with the opposite being true for higher values of input levels.
Unlike the log function, however, we notice here a family of possible transformation curves
obtained simply by varying γ.
In Fig that curves generated with values of γ>1 have exactly The opposite effect as those
generated with values of γ<1. Finally, we Note that Eq. (6) reduces to the identity
transformation when c=γ=1.

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 Fig. 2.13 Plot of the equation S = crγ for various values of γ (c =1 in all cases).
This type of transformation is used for enhancing images for different type of display
devices. The gamma of different display devices is different. For example Gamma of CRT
lies in between of 1.8 to 2.5, that means the image displayed on CRT is dark.
Varying gamma (γ) obtains family of possible transformation curves S = C* r γ
Here C and γ are positive constants. Plot of S versus r for various values of γ is
γ > 1 compresses dark values
Expands bright values
γ < 1 (similar to Log transformation)
Expands dark values
Compresses bright values
When C = γ = 1 , it reduces to identity transformation .

CORRECTING GAMMA:
s=crγ
s=cr (1/2.5)
The same image but with different gamma values has been shown here.

Piecewise-Linear Transformation Functions:

A complementary approach to the methods discussed in the previous three sections is
to use piecewise linear functions. The principal advantage of piecewise linear functions over
the types of functions we have discussed thus far is that the form of piecewise functions can
be arbitrarily complex.
The principal disadvantage of piecewise functions is that their specification requires
considerably more user input.
Contrast stretching: One of the simplest piecewise linear functions is a contrast-stretching
transformation. Low-contrast images can result from poor illumination, lack of dynamic
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range in the imaging sensor, or even wrong setting of a lens aperture during image
acquisition.
S= T(r )
Figure x(a) shows a typical transformation used for contrast stretching. The locations
of points (r1, s1) and (r2, s2) control the shape of the transformation
Function. If r1=s1 and r2=s2, the transformation is a linear function that produces No
changes in gray levels. If r1=r2, s1=0and s2= L-1, the transformation Becomes a thresholding
function that creates a binary image, as illustrated In fig. 2.2(b).
Intermediate values of ar1, s1b and ar2, s2b produce various degrees Of spread in the
gray levels of the output image, thus affecting its contrast. In general, r1≤ r2 and s1 ≤ s2 is
assumed so that the function is single valued and Monotonically increasing.

Fig. x Contrast stretching. (a) Form of transformation function. (b) A low-contrast stretching.
(c) Result of contrast stretching. (d) Result of thresholding (original image courtesy of
[Link] Heady, Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University
Canberra Australia.
Figure x(b) shows an 8-bit image with low contrast. Fig. x(c) shows the result of contrast
stretching, obtained by setting (r1, s1 )=(rmin, 0) and (r2, s2)=(rmax,L-1) where rmin and rmax
denote the minimum and maximum gray levels in the image, [Link], the
transformation function stretched the levels linearly from their original range to the full range

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[0, L-1]. Finally, Fig. x(d) shows the result of using the thresholding function defined
previously,
with r1=r2=m, the mean gray level in the image. The original image on which these results
are based is a scanning electron microscope image of pollen, magnified approximately 700
times.
Gray-level slicing:
Highlighting a specific range of gray levels in an image often is desired. Applications
include enhancing features such as masses of water in satellite imagery and enhancing flaws
in X-ray images.
There are several ways of doing level slicing, but most of them are variations of two
basic [Link] approach is to display a high value for all gray levels in the range of
interest and a low value for all other gray levels.
This transformation, shown in Fig. y(a), produces a binary image. The second
approach, based on the transformation shown in Fig.y (b), brightens the desired range of gray
levels but preserves the background and gray-level tonalities in the image. Figure y (c) shows
a gray-scale image, and Fig. y(d) shows the result of using the transformation in Fig.
y(a).Variations of the two transformations shown in Fig. are easy to formulate.

Fig. y (a)This transformation highlights range [A,B] of gray levels and reduces all others to a
constant level (b) This transformation highlights range [A,B] but preserves all other levels.
(c) An image . (d) Result of using the transformation in (a).
BIT-PLANE SLICING:
Instead of highlighting gray-level ranges, highlighting the contribution made to total
image appearance by specific bits might be desired. Suppose that each pixel in an image is
represented by 8 bits. Imagine that the image is composed of eight 1-bit planes, ranging from
bit-plane 0 for the least significant bit to bit plane 7 for the most significant bit. In terms of 8-

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bit bytes, plane 0 contains all the lowest order bits in the bytes comprising the pixels in the
image and plane 7 contains all the high-order bits.
Figure 3.12 illustrates these ideas, and Fig. 3.14 shows the various bit planes for the
image shown in Fig. 3.13. Note that the higher-order bits (especially the top four) contain the
majority of the visually significant [Link] other bit planes contribute to more subtle details
in the image. Separating a digital image into its bit planes is useful for analyzing the relative
importance played by each bit of the image, a process that aids in determining the adequacy
of the number of bits used to quantize each pixel.

In terms of bit-plane extraction for an 8-bit image, it is not difficult to show that the
(binary) image for bit-plane 7 can be obtained by processing the input image with a
thresholding gray-level transformation function that (1) maps all levels in the image between
0 and 127 to one level (for example, 0); and (2) maps all levels between 129 and 255 to
another (for example, 255).The binary image for bit-plane 7 in Fig. 3.14 was obtained in just
this manner. It is left as an exercise
(Problem 3.3) to obtain the gray-level transformation functions that would yield the other bit
planes.
Histogram Processing:
The histogram of a digital image with gray levels in the range [0, L-1] is a discrete
function of the form
H(rk)=nk
where rk is the kth gray level and nk is the number of pixels in the image having the
level rk.. A normalized histogram is given by the equation
p(rk)=nk/n for k=0,1,2,…..,L-1
P(rk) gives the estimate of the probability of occurrence of gray level rk.
The sum of all components of a normalized histogram is equal to 1.
The histogram plots are simple plots of H(rk)=nk versus rk.

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In the dark image the components of the histogram are concentrated on the low (dark) side
of the gray scale. In case of bright image the histogram components are baised towards the
high side of the gray scale. The histogram of a low contrast image will be narrow and will
be centered towards the middle of the gray scale.
The components of the histogram in the high contrast image cover a broad range of the gray
scale. The net effect of this will be an image that shows a great deal of gray levels details
and has high dynamic range.

Histogram Equalization:
Histogram equalization is a common technique for enhancing the appearance of images.
Suppose we have an image which is predominantly dark. Then its histogram would be

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skewed towards the lower end of the grey scale and all the image detail are compressed into
the dark end of the histogram. If we could „stretch out‟ the grey levels at the dark end to
produce a more uniformly distributed histogram then the image would become much
clearer.
Let there be a continuous function with r being gray levels of the image to be enhanced. The
range of r is [0, 1] with r=0 repressing black and r=1 representing white. The transformation
function is of the form
S=T(r) where 0<r<1
It produces a level s for every pixel value r in the original image.

The transformation function is assumed to fulfill two condition T(r) is single valued and
monotonically increasing in the internal 0<T(r)<1 for 0<r<[Link] transformation
function should be single valued so that the inverse transformations should exist.
Monotonically increasing condition preserves the increasing order from black to white
in the output image. The second conditions guarantee that the output gray levels will be
in the same range as the input levels. The gray levels of the image may be viewed as
random variables in the interval [0.1]. The most fundamental descriptor of a random
variable is its probability density function (PDF) Pr(r) and Ps(s) denote the probability
density functions of random variables r and s respectively. Basic results from an
elementary probability theory states that if Pr(r) and Tr are known and T-1(s) satisfies
conditions (a), then the probability density function Ps(s) of the transformed variable is
given by the formula

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