Computer Vision

Image Enhancement
Histogram Processing
Instructor Name
Ms. Kashia Riaz
 Contents
Over the next few lectures we will look at image
enhancement techniques working in the spatial
domain:
▪ Recap
▪ Different kinds of image enhancement
▪ Histograms
▪ Histogram equalization

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 A Note About Grey Levels
▪ So far when we have spoken about image grey level
values, we have said they are in the range [0, 255]
- Where 0 is black and 255 is white

▪ There is no reason why we have to use this range

- The range [0,255] stems from display technologies
▪ For many of the image processing operations in
this lecture grey levels are assumed to be given in
the range [0.0, 1.0]

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 What Is Image Enhancement?

Image enhancement is the process of making

images more useful
The reasons for doing this include:
▪ Highlighting interesting detail in images
▪ Removing noise from images
▪ Making images more visually appealing

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Image Enhancement Examples

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Image Enhancement Examples (cont.…)

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Image Enhancement Examples (cont.…)

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 Spatial & Frequency Domains

There are two broad categories of image enhancement

techniques
▪ Spatial domain techniques
▪ Direct manipulation of image pixels
▪ Frequency domain techniques
▪ Manipulation of Fourier transform or wavelet
transform of an image
For the moment we will concentrate on techniques that
operate in the spatial domain

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 Image Histograms
▪ The histogram of an image shows us the
distribution of grey levels in the image
▪ Massively useful in image processing, especially in
segmentation
Frequencies

Grey Levels 9
Histogram Examples

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Histogram Examples (cont.…)

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Histogram Examples (cont.…)
Histogram Examples (cont.…)

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Histogram Examples (cont.…)

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Histogram Examples (cont.…)

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Histogram Examples (cont.…)

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Histogram Examples (cont…)

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Histogram Examples (cont.…)

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Histogram Examples (cont.…)

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 Histogram Examples (cont.…)
▪ A selection of images and
their histograms
▪ Notice the relationships
between the images and
their histograms
▪ Note that the high contrast
image has the most
evenly spaced histogram

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 Contrast Stretching

▪ We can fix images that have poor contrast by

applying a pretty simple contrast specification
▪ The interesting part is how do we decide on
this transformation function?

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 Histogram Equalisation
Spreading out the frequencies in an image (or equalising the
image) is a simple way to improve dark or washed out
images
The formula for histogram
equalisation is given where sk = T ( rk )
▪ rk: input intensity k
▪ sk: processed intensity =  pr ( r j )
▪ k: the intensity range j =1
(e.g 0.0 – 1.0)
k nj
=
▪ nj: the frequency of intensity j
▪ n: the sum of all frequencies
j =1 n
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Equalisation Transformation Function

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Equalisation Examples

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Equalisation Examples

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 Example
▪ Consider a 5x5 image with integer intensities in the
range between one and eight:

1 8 4 3 4
1 1 1 7 8
8 8 3 3 1
2 2 1 5 2
1 1 8 5 2

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 Example

n1 n 2 n3 n 4 n 5 n 6 n 7 n8
1 8 4 3 4
1 1 1 7 8
8 8 3 3 1
2 2 1 5 2
1 1 8 5 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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 Histogram Function

n1 n 2 n3 n 4 n 5 n 6 n 7 n8

h( rk ) = nk

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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 Histogram Function

ℎ(𝑟1 ) = 8
ℎ(𝑟2 ) = 4 n1 n 2 n3 n 4 n5 n6 n 7 n8
ℎ(𝑟3 ) = 3
ℎ(𝑟4 ) = 2
ℎ(𝑟5 ) = 2
ℎ(𝑟6 ) = 0
ℎ(𝑟7 ) = 1
ℎ(𝑟8 ) = 5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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 Normalised Histogram Function
▪ The normalised histogram function is the histogram
function divided by the total number of the pixels
of the image:
h(rk ) nk
p(rk ) = =
n n
▪ It gives a measure of how likely is for a pixel to
have a certain intensity. That is, it gives the
probability of occurrence the intensity.
▪ The sum of the normalised histogram function
over the range of all intensities is 1.

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 Normalised Histogram Function

h( r1 ) = 8 p (r1 ) = 8 / 25 = 0.32
h( r2 ) = 4 p (r2 ) = 4 / 25 = 0.16
h( r3 ) = 3 p (r3 ) = 3 / 25 = 0.12
h( r4 ) = 2 p (r4 ) = 3 / 25 = 0.08
h( r5 ) = 2 p (r5 ) = 2 / 25 = 0.08
h( r6 ) = 0 p (r6 ) = 0 / 25 = 0.00
h( r7 ) = 1 p (r7 ) = 1 / 25 = 0.04
h( r8 ) = 5 p (r8 ) = 5 / 25 = 0.20

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 Histogram Equalization

Normalised Intensity transformation

histogram function function

p (r1 ) = 0.32 T (r1 ) = 0.32

p (r2 ) = 0.16 T (r2 ) = 0.32 + 0.16 = 0.48
p (r3 ) = 0.12 T (r3 ) = 0.32 + 0.16 + 0.12 = 0.60
p (r4 ) = 0.08 T (r4 ) = 0.32 + 0.16 + 0.12 + 0.08 = 0.68
p (r5 ) = 0.08 T (r5 ) =
p (r6 ) = 0.00 T (r6 ) =
p (r7 ) = 0.04 T (r7 ) =
p (r8 ) = 0.20 T (r8 ) =
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 Histogram Equalization

The 32% of the pixels have

intensity r1. We expect
p (r1 ) = 0.32 T (r1 ) = 0.32 them to cover 32% of the
p (r2 ) = 0.16 T (r2 ) = 0.48 possible intensities.
p (r3 ) = 0.12 T (r3 ) = 0.60
The 48% of the pixels have
p (r4 ) = 0.08 T (r4 ) = 0.68 intensity r2 or less. We
p (r5 ) = 0.08 T (r5 ) = 0.76 expect them to cover 48%
of the possible intensities.
p (r6 ) = 0.00 T (r6 ) = 0.76
p (r7 ) = 0.04 T (r7 ) = 0.80 The 60% of the pixels have
intensity r3 or less. We
p (r8 ) = 0.20 T (r8 ) = 1.00 expect them to cover 60%
of the possible intensities.

……………………………
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Histogram Equalization

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 Summary
We have looked at:
▪ Different kinds of image enhancement
▪ Histograms
▪ Histogram equalisation
Next time we will start to look at point processing
and some neighbourhood operations

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 Next Lecture
▪ What is point processing?
▪ Negative images
▪ Thresholding
▪ Logarithmic transformation
▪ Power law transforms
▪ Grey level slicing
▪ Bit plane slicing

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THANK YOU

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