Applications based on luminance processing often face the problem of recovering the original chrominance in the output color image. A common approach to reconstruct a color image from the luminance output is by preserving the original hue and saturation. However, this approach often produces a highly colorful image which is undesirable. We develop a color preservation method that not only retains the ratios of the input tri-chromatic values but also adjusts the output chroma in an appropriate way. Linearizing the output luminance is the key idea to realize this method. In addition, a lightness difference metric together with a colorfulness difference metric are proposed to evaluate the performance of the color preservation methods. It shows that the proposed method performs consistently better than the existing approaches.

Date Published: 3 February 2014
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 9015, Color Imaging XIX: Displaying, Processing, Hardcopy, and Applications, 90150B (3 February 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2042432

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9015:
Color Imaging XIX: Displaying, Processing, Hardcopy, and Applications
Reiner Eschbach; Gabriel G. Marcu; Alessandro Rizzi, Editor(s)