The under constrained nature of illuminant estimation determines that in order to resolve the problem, certain assumptions are needed, such as the gray world theory. Including more constraints in this process may help explore the useful information in an image and improve the accuracy of the estimated illuminant, providing that the constraints hold. Based on the observation that most personal images have contents of one or more of the following categories: neutral objects, human beings, sky, and plants, we propose a method for illuminant estimation through the clustering of pixels of gray and three dominant memory colors: skin tone, sky blue, and foliage green. Analysis shows that samples of the above colors cluster around small areas under different illuminants and their characteristics can be used to effectively detect pixels falling into each of the categories. The algorithm requires the knowledge of the spectral sensitivity response of the camera, and a spectral database consisted of the CIE standard illuminants and reflectance or radiance database of samples of the above colors.

Date Published: 18 January 2010
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7537, Digital Photography VI, 75370J (18 January 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.844704

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7537:
Digital Photography VI
Francisco Imai; Nitin Sampat; Feng Xiao, Editor(s)