Digital Image Processing

Ch3. Intensity Transformations

Dr. Sondos Fadl

 Chapter 3 Contents
Over the next few lectures we will look at
image enhancement techniques working in
the spatial domain:
– What is image enhancement?
– Different kinds of image enhancement
– Point processing
– Histogram processing
– Spatial filtering
 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
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Image Enhancement Examples

Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Image Enhancement Examples (cont…)

Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Image Enhancement Examples (cont…)

Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Image Enhancement Examples (cont…)

 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
 Contents
In this lecture we will look at image
enhancement point processing techniques:
– What is point processing?
– Negative images
– Thresholding
– Logarithmic transformation
– Power law transforms
 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

For many of the image processing

operations in this lecture grey levels are
assumed to be given in the range [0.0, 1.0]
 Basic Spatial Domain Image
Enhancement
Most spatial domain enhancement operations
can be reduced to the form
Origin x
g (x, y) = T[ f (x, y)]
where f (x, y) is the
input image, g (x, y) is
the processed image (x, y)
and T is some
operator defined over
some neighbourhood
of (x, y) y Image f (x, y)
 Point Processing
The simplest spatial domain operations
occur when the neighbourhood is simply the
pixel itself
In this case T is referred to as a grey level
transformation function or a point processing
operation
Point processing operations take the form
s=T(r)
where s refers to the processed image pixel
value and r refers to the original image pixel
value.
 Point Processing Example:
Negative Images
Negative images are useful for enhancing
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

white or grey detail embedded in dark

regions of an image
– Note how much clearer the tissue is in the
negative image of the mammogram below

Original Negative
s = 1.0 - r
Image Image
Point Processing Example:
Negative Images (cont…)
Original Image Enhanced Image x
x

y Image f (x, y) y Image f (x, y)

s = intensitymax - r
 Point Processing Example:
Thresholding
Thresholding transformations are particularly
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

useful for segmentation in which we want to

isolate an object of interest from a
background

1.0 r > threshold

s=
0.0 r <= threshold
Point Processing Example:
Thresholding (cont…)
Original Image Enhanced Image x
x

y Image f (x, y) y Image f (x, y)

1.0 r > threshold

s=
0.0 r <= threshold
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Contrast stretching
Intensity Transformations

Thresholding
 Basic Grey Level Transformations
There are many different kinds of grey level
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

transformations
Three of the most
common are shown
here
– Linear
• Negative/Identity
– Logarithmic
• Log/Inverse log
– Power law
• nth power/nth root
 Logarithmic Transformations
The general form of the log transformation is
s = c * log(1 + r)
The log transformation maps a narrow range
of low input grey level values into a wider
range of output values
The inverse log transformation performs the
opposite transformation
 Logarithmic Transformations (cont…)

Log functions are particularly useful when

Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

the input grey level values may have an

extremely large range of values
In the following example the Fourier
transform of an image is put through a log
transform to reveal more detail

s = log(1 + r)
 Logarithmic Transformations (cont…)

Original Image Enhanced Image x

x

y Image f (x, y) y Image f (x, y)

s = log(1 + r)
We usually set c to 1.
Grey levels must be in the range [0.0, 1.0]
 Power Law Transformations
Power law transformations have the following form
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

s=c*rγ
Map a narrow range
of dark input values
into a wider range of
output values or vice
versa
Varying γ gives a whole
family of curves
 Power Law Transformations (cont…)
Original Image Enhanced Image x
x

y Image f (x, y) y Image f (x, y)

s=rγ
We usually set c to 1.
Grey levels must be in the range [0.0, 1.0]
Power Law Example
 Power Law Example (cont…)

γ = 0.6
1
Transformed Intensities

0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Old Intensities
 Power Law Example (cont…)

γ = 0.4
1
0.9
Transformed Intensities

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Original Intensities
 Power Law Example (cont…)

γ = 0.3
1
0.9
Transformed Intensities

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Original Intensities
 Power Law Example (cont…)
The images to the
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

right show a s = r 0.6

magnetic resonance
(MR) image of a
fractured human

s = r 0.4
spine
Different curves
highlight different
detail
Power Law Example
 Power Law Example (cont…)

γ = 5.0
1
0.9
Transformed Intensities

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Original Intensities
 Power Law Transformations (cont…)
An aerial photo
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

of a runway is
shown s = r 3.0

This time
power law

s = r 4.0
transforms are
used to darken
the image
Different curves
highlight
different detail
 Piecewise Linear Transformation
Functions
Rather than using a well defined mathematical
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

function we can use arbitrary user-defined

transforms
The images below show a contrast stretching
linear transform to add contrast to a poor
quality image
 Piecewise-Linear Transformation
(cont…)
• Image Contrast
- The contrast of a grayscale image
indicates how easily objects in the image
can be distinguished
- High contrast image: many distinct
intensity values
- Low contrast: image uses few intensity
values
Piecewise-Linear Transformation
(cont…)
 Summary
We have looked at different kinds of point
processing image enhancement
Next time we will start to look at histogram
processing methods.