International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)

ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P), Volume-3, Issue-7, July 2015

A Hybrid Method for Contrast Enhancement with

Edge Preservation of Generalized Images
Shubham Grover, Abhishek Sharma

which falls under histogram modification technique.

Abstract Image enhancement becomes most important Histogram Equalization (HE) is a technique that made
technique in digital image processing because everyone wants contrast adjustment using histogram of image. Histogram is
lovely looking images. Many techniques have been discovered the discrete function. Discrete form of histogram equalization
from last few years to improve the visual appearance of the
is formulated as where is the transformation
images. For better visualization of dark looking images or
contrast limited images, a hybrid approach for contrast matrix, is the input image and is the intensity value of
enhancement and edge preservation is developed. This approach output image. It allocates the pixel values evenly so that
not only enhanced the contrast of images but the edges, corners, producing the resultant picture better. There are many
boundaries of images are also getting preserved. Since edges of methods by which Histogram of an image can be equalized. A
image contain rich information, thus it becomes very necessary histogram simply plots the frequency at which each grey-level
to preserve the edges of image. To achieve this challenging task, occurs from 0 (black) to 255(white). Many methods have
a hybrid approach of histogram equalized image, modified been introduced to enhance the contrast of images. In
gamma corrected image and original test image is developed. Classical Histogram Equalization (CHE) given number of
For the detection of preserved edges, edge detection method is
gray levels over a range is uniformly distributed. The CHE
used. For checking the effectiveness of this novel approach, four
performance parameters are computed i.e. Discrete Entropy produce a resultant image with a flattened histogram, when
(H), Absolute Mean Brightness Error (AMBE), Mean Square compared to that of input image. An image is made by the
Error (MSE), and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR). dynamic range of gray level values. Basically, the entire gray
Maximum value of Entropy and PSNR, Minimum value of MSE level values i.e. intensity of image are denoted as 0 to L1.
and AMBE are preferable. Novel approach of contrast The problem associated with this method is that while
enhancement with edge preservation fulfills all these demands. enhancing the contrast of its background, the signal gets
distorted and produces undesired changes. It produces
unrealistic and unlikely effects in photographic images. In
Index Terms Contrast enhancement, Edge preservation,
Adaptive Histogram Equalization the contrast of the image is
Edge detection, Histogram equalization, Modified gamma
correction.
enhanced by transforming the values in the intensity image.
It overcomes the limitations of global linear min-max
I. INTRODUCTION windowing and global histogram equalization by providing
most of the desired information in a single image which can
Image enhancement plays a vital role in the image analysis be produced without manual intervention [2]. But it
and interpretation of remotely sensed data. Especially data introduced a problem of over-amplifying noise in some
obtained from satellite, remote sensing, biomedical, which are homogeneous regions of an image. Also at the same time it is
in the digital form. It helps in maximizing clarity, visibility, not efficient to retain the brightness with respect to the input
sharpness and other properties which are necessary for image. The remedy of these problems is an advanced and
extracting the information by image analysis and recognition. modified version of AHE which is known as Contrast Limited
(a) Contrast enhancement, (b) Intensity, hue, and saturation Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE). Brightness
transformations, (c) Density slicing, (d) Edge enhancement preserving Bi-Histogram Equalization (BBHE) is a technique
(e) Making digital mosaics, (f) Producing synthetic stereo in which two separate histograms from the same image is
images are some examples of image enhancement operations. obtained and then equalized independently. Where first one is
Contrast enhancement is one of the most commonly used the histogram of intensities that are less than mean intensity,
technique for image enhancement. Contrast enhancement and second one is the histogram of intensities that are greater
techniques [1] can broadly be classified into two categories: than mean intensity. This method can reduce the mean
direct and indirect methods. In direct methods the image brightness variation [3]. Recursive Mean Separate Histogram
contrast can be directly defined by a specific contrast term. Equalization (RMSHE) [4] which enhances an image by
On the other hand indirect methods improve the contrast iterating BHE. The mean intensity of the output image will
without defining a specific contrast term. In other words it converge to the average brightness of the original image when
enhances contrast of the image by redistributing the the iteration increases and hence the brightness of the
probability density function. Histogram modification is the enhanced image to the original image can be maintained far
greatly used technique which comes under the indirect better. Although the methods mentioned above can often
contrast enhancement method because it consumes less increase the contrast of the image, these approaches usually
computation time and also easy to perform. Histogram bring some undesired effects. Overall the traditional global
equalization and Gamma correction are one of the techniques histogram equalization (GHE) will cause excessive
enhancement, and the local histogram equalization (LHE)
Shubham Grover, M.Tech in E.C.E., M.M.E.C, M.M.U, Mullana,
introduces block effect [5].
Haryana, India
Abhishek Sharma, Asst. Prof . in E.C.E., M.M.E.C, M.M.U, Mullana, The edges of image contain large amount of information that
India is very important for obtaining the image characteristic by

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 A Hybrid Method for Contrast Enhancement with Edge Preservation of Generalized Images

object recognition. It plays an important role in image where is the transformation matrix, is the input image
understanding and image analyses, thus it is very important to and is the intensity value of output image. Modified gamma
preserve edges of image during contrast enhancement. Many correction is formulated as follows:
methods are developed to preserve the edges of image which / (2)
are based on local linear kernel surface estimation [6]. Other Where = 1-cdf ( ), denotes gamma value and is the
methods are based on mean shift by nonlinear filtering [7]. maximum intensity of the input. After this, hybridization of
The edge-preserving lter is used to generate a good mask input image, histogram equalized image and modified gamma
which smooths the image area with clear and fine details. corrected image is carried out which results in contrast
Enhanced sharpness of edges is also one of the feature enhancement with edge preservation of input image. The
required in image enhancement tasks [8]. The halftoning hybridization technique is based on summation of original
method which is based on modified nasik pattem techniques image, weighting coefficient k multiplied by histogram
reduces visible quantization errors and maintains image equalised image, weighting coefficient multiplied by
texture simultaneously. Not only the edges in luminance modified gamma corrected image and then whole is divided
domain but the boundaries in chrominance domain are also by summation of 1, k and . Edge detection filtration method
preserved [9]. Edge preserving image enhancement by detects the preserved edges obtained in final image by
harmony search technique boosts the relative number of edges hybridization technique. Since intensity value of image
in the image. It also improves the entropic measure of the contains many discontinuities which contains meaning full
images and enhances the overall intensity level of edges as data, therefore the need of edge preservation of images are
well. The problems associated with it are increased experienced. Such discontinuities are detected by first and
complexity and computational time [10]. second order derivatives. The first order derivative in image
Edge detection is one of the most commonly used techniques processing is gradient. The gradient is defined as the vector
to detect preserved edges of images. It is a fundamental tool
which is usually used in many image processing applications i.e. The magnitude of this vector is represented as
to obtain information from images and frames and this 1/2
= mag ( =[
method is also suitable to find the discontinuities in depth, = [( 2
+( 2 1/2
] (3)
discontinuities in surface orientation, changes in material
properties, features detection, features extraction and Where and are first order derivatives. Second order
variations in scene illumination [11]. Different methods of
derivatives in image processing is usually obtained by
edge detection technique are Sobel edge detector, Robert
edge detection, Prewitt edge detection, Laplacian of Gaussian laplacian which is represented as
(LOG), Canny Edge Detector. The rest of this paper is + (4)
organized as follows: Section II provides a detail of proposed
method. Section III provides the details of performance
parameters. In Section IV, Results are computed and
performance parameters are compared with the help of charts.
Section V includes the conclusion and future scope of
proposed method.

II. PROPOSED METHOD

It has been seen that image enhancement are one of the major
research issues in todays world because everyone wants good
quality picture. Most of methods discussed above are too
complex to implement and also not provide an efficient
approach for contrast enhancement and edge preservation
because traditional global histogram equalization causes
excessive contrast enhancement while local histogram
equalization causes block effect. Losses of edges of image
when two nearby pixels have same or approx same grey level
value (i.e. intensity value) is also a big problem occurs during
image enhancement. Mixing of pixels occurs in an image due
to over enhancement & under enhancement and hence
information loss is the result. To overcome all these problems
a hybrid approach is developed for image enhancement that
provides an efficient result to almost all the images. It will not
only enhance the contrast of the images but also preserved the
edges of image which can be detected by edge detection
methods.
Figure :1 Flow Chart of proposed method
Histogram equalization and modified gamma correction [12]
of images are computed. Histogram equalization of image is
represented as III. PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS
(1) Image Enhancement performance parameters in the term of
Entropy, Absolute Mean Brightness Error (AMBE), Mean

347 www.erpublication.org
 International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P), Volume-3, Issue-7, July 2015
Square Error (MSE), and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)
are computed which justify the proposed method. Here three
test images are considered and proposed method is applied on
them one by one and then parameters mentioned above are
computed and comparison graph are plotted which will be
shown in results section. Higher the value of Discrete Entropy
(H), higher the information contents in image. It is formulated
as (5)
Lower the value of AMBE, higher the preservation of mean
brightness of images.
(6)
where N represents the total number of test images, E(X) and
E(Y) are the average intensity of Nth test images, and E(Y) the
average intensity of the corresponding output images. Lower
the value of MSE, higher is the preservation of edges of
image.
It is formulated as
2
(7)
Where is the size of image is the processed image and
is the input image. Larger the value of PSNR, better the
quality of images. It is formulated as
(8)

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

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 A Hybrid Method for Contrast Enhancement with Edge Preservation of Generalized Images

Figure:2 (a) Original Image (MMU campus) (b) Gray scale of

original image (c) Edge Detection of Gray Image
(d) Histogram Equalized Image (d) BBHE Image (e) Final Image (f)
Edge Detection of Final Image

Table: 1 shows the experimental results for figure 2

MMU ENTROPY(H) AMBE MSE PSNR
CAMPUS
Histogram 5.65 39.91 61.52 30.3
Equalised
Image
BBHE 6.25 13.1 248.26 24.22
Image
Final 5.71 2.8 8.1 39.06
Image

Figure:3 (a) Original Image (shubhams selfie) (b) Gray scale of

original image (c) Edge Detection of Gray Image (d)
Histogram Equalized Image (d) BBHE Image (e) Final Image (f)
Edge Detection of Final Image

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 International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P), Volume-3, Issue-7, July 2015
Table: 2 shows the experimental results for figure 3
Shubhams ENTROPY AMBE MSE PSNR
selfie (H)
Histogram 5.85 47.1 48.3 31.33
Equalised
Image
BBHE 6.5 28 146.6 26.50
Image
Final Image 6.01 7.5 6.55 40.00

Figure:4 (a) Original Image (satellite view of PCA cricket stadium)

(b) Gray scale of original image (c) Edge Detection of Gray Image
(d) Histogram Equalized Image (d) BBHE Image (e) Final Image (f)
Edge Detection of Final Image

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 A Hybrid Method for Contrast Enhancement with Edge Preservation of Generalized Images

Table: 3 shows the experimental results for figure 4 Histogram Equalization method and BBHE method.
PCA Cricket ENTROPY(H) AMBE MSE PSN Proposed method gives maximum Entropy and PSNR,
Stadium R minimum MSE and AMBE which can be seen in charts shown
Histogram 5.78 69.7 0.26 54.1 above.
Equalised
Image
BBHE Image 6.22 37 77.2 29.3
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE
Final Image 6.3 18 0.05 61.5
An efficient image enhancement method is proposed which is
based on hybridization of original image, histogram equalized
image and modified gamma corrected image that will not only
248.26 enhance the contrast of images but also preserve the edges of
250
images. Edge detection helps to detect preserved edges of
200 enhanced images. The problems of losses of edges due to over
ENTROPY(H)
or under enhancement, block effects, excessive contrast
150
enhancement caused by local histogram and global histogram
100 61.52 AMBE respectively are solved by hybrid approach. This novel
39.91 39.06 method improves the clarity and visibility of images which are
50 5.65 30.313.124.22
5.71
8.1 MSE
6.25 2.8 the major need in image processing, remote sensing and
0 PSNR biomedical images. This method can be applied to enhanced
Histogram Final Image the SAR images, Satellite images and medical images.
Equalised
Image
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Figure : 7 Comparison Chart of Proposed Method with Histogram

Equalization and BBHE method for figure 4

In this section, results and performance parameters of three

images are carried out and it is clearly seen that performance
parameters of proposed method are better than rest of two i.e.

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