An Efficient Skin Illumination Compensation Model

for Efficient Face Detection

C . N. Ravi Kumar , Bindu . A
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering,
Mysore 570006, Karnataka State, India

mentioned extreme cases taken into consideration).

Abstract – Face detection (human) plays an
In view of the capability to handle high degree of
important role in applications such as human
variability, that our approach can handle we
computer interface, face recognition video
articulate that our approach outperforms all the
surveillance and face image database management.
published popular methods (A comparison of
In the human face detection applications, face(s)
which is given in Table 1).
most frequently form an inconsequential part of
the images. Consequently, preliminary
Key Words: Face detection, Face recognition,
segmentation of images into regions that contain
Lighting compensation, Colour transformation, Skin
“non-face” objects and regions that may contain
tone, Facial map, Signatures.
“face” candidates can greatly accelerate the
process of human face detection. Most existing face
1. INTRODUCTION
detection approaches have assumptions, which
UNTIL recently, many applications developed to
make them applicable only under some specific
secure access control and financial transactions are
conditions. Existing techniques for face detection in
based on biometrics recognition such as face, iris
colour images are plagued by poor performance in
pattern and fingerprints recognition. The rapid
the presence of scale variation, variation in
development of cheaper and more advanced computer
illumination, variation in skin colours, complex
controller plays an important role in making the
backgrounds etc. In this research work we have
biometrics recognition more economically feasible in
made a humble attempt to propose an algorithm
such developments.
for face detection in colour images in the presence
One of the most common biometrics recognition is
of varying lighting conditions, for varied skin
face recognition. The face recognition has attracted
colours as well as with complex backgrounds.
many researchers’ attention in the recent years, since
Based on a novel tangible skin component
the human face offers a relatively easy and reliable
extraction modus operandi and detection of the
way to identify individuals, compared to other
valid face candidates, our method detects skin
identification means [53]. Some existing applications
regions over the entire image and engenders face
that employ face recognition include mug shot
candidates based on the signatures of the detected
matching, credit card verification, ATM access, home
skin patches. The algorithm constructs the
PC access, video surveillance, etc. [51],[55].
boundary for each face candidate. Experimental
The first step involved in an automated face
results demonstrate successful face detection over a
recognition is the face detection by which the location
wide range of facial variations in colour, position,
and size of each face is determined. The reliability of
scale, varying lighting conditions, orientation, 3D
the face detection process has a major influence on the
pose, and expression in images from the database
performance and usability of the whole face
which is enriched with several photo collections
recognition application. Hence, to produce a
(both indoors and outdoors with all the above

1-4244-0136-4/06/$20.00 '2006 IEEE 3444

commendable face recognition application, the face
detection algorithm should be highly efficient.
Human activity is a major concern in a wide variety of
applications such as biometrics, animation, video
surveillance, human computer interface, face
recognition [16], [38], [51], and face image database
management [20]. Detecting faces is a crucial step in
these identification applications. Most of the face
recognition algorithms assume that the face location is
known. Similarly, face tracking algorithms (e.g., [18])
often assume that the initial face location is known. It
can be noted here that the face detection can be
viewed as a two-class (face versus nonface)
classification problem. Therefore, some techniques
developed for face recognition (e.g., holistic/ template
approaches [28], [41], [52], [54], feature-based
approaches [40], and their combination [23]) have also
been used to detect faces, but they are computationally
very demanding and cannot handle large variations in
face images.
Various approaches to face detection are
discussed in [9], [11], [12], [17], [43]. The major
approaches are listed chronologically in Table 1. For
recent surveys on face detection, [9] and [12] can be
referred to. These approaches use techniques such as
principal component analysis, neural networks,
machine learning, information theory, geometrical
modelling, (deformable) template matching, Hough
Transform and colour analysis. The neural network
based [34], [35] and view-based [37] approaches
require a large number of face and nonface training
examples and are designed primarily to locate frontal
faces to profile views. A feature-based approach that
uses geometrical facial features with belief networks
[39] provides face detection for nonfrontal views.
Geometrical facial templates and Hough
transform were incorporated to detect Gray-scale
frontal faces in real time applications [17]. Face
detectors based on Markov random fields [48] and
Markov chains [42], make use of the spatial
arrangement of pixel Gray values.
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Categorizing face detection methods based
on the representation used reveals that detection
algorithms using holistic representations have the
advantage of finding small faces or faces in poor
quality images, while those using the geometrical
facial features provide a good solution for detecting
faces in different poses. A combination of holistic and
feature-based approaches [24], [33], is a promising
approach to face detection as well as face recognition.
Motion [11], [27] and skin-tone colour [10], [11], [28],
[29], [45], are useful cues for face detection. However
the colour based approaches face difficulties in
robustly detecting skin colours in the presence of
complex background and different lighting conditions
[8], [28]. We propose a face detection algorithm that is
able to handle a wide range of variations in static
colour images, based on lighting compensation
techniques, various skin tones and with very
complicated background and uses signature of the
different skin regions identified to uniquely identify
the face candidates.
2. PROPOSED FACE DETECTION STEPS
An outline of the proposed algorithm portrayed in the
fig.1, contains the following major modules, that is.,
(i) Skin Region Detection, (ii) Face Candidate
Localization. The algorithm initially estimates and
projects the lighting compensated red component
(LCRC) content of the image. The LCRC component
is evolved from the input colour image by
transforming the RGB Colour Space component of the
image onto YCbCr Colour Space component and
removing the intensity and the blue component from
the image. The resulting LCRC image in the YCbCr
colour space is remodelled back to the RGB colour
space. Only the Red component is retained in the
resulting image with respect to the fact that the human
skin is rich in red component because of the presence
of the blood irrespective of the colour of the skin. The
modified image is subjected to skin detection
algorithm which detects only the true skin regions in
the image. It is evident from the experimental results
that fallacious skin region detection is trounced
proficiently.
The proposed face detection algorithm performs
efficiently. The algorithm detects the valid skin
regions and projects the face region out of the detected
skin regions [Fig 1].
The complexity involved in computation is relatively
more proficient when compared to that of the prior
developed methodologies [55] because of the fact that
the luminance information is excluded from the
computation. The pixel and the region based valid skin
colour extraction technique are applied only on the
bespoken chrominance information..
2.1 SKIN ILLUMINATION COMPENSATION
MODEL
In Order to detect human faces in an image, a good
starting point may be to identify any face like object in
the image. One possible way to achieve it is to find
any region in the image that is skin coloured. In our
work, skin tone is considered for detecting faces
because of its efficiency and invariance to head pose,
orientation
and size[44], [45]. Moreover detection using skin tone
is much faster than processing other facial features
[51]. Despite the fact that human faces have variation
in their skin colours [44], it is noted that such variation
lies more in the intensity rather than the colour itself,
that is to say that the skin colour chromaticity varies
slightly between varied cases compared to the
intensity variation. This may have something to do
with the fact that there are differences in the amount of
melanin in the skin, which affects the amount of light
absorption, but little or no effects on the spectral
characteristics between individuals[40], [44].
A Skin Illumination Compensation model can be
developed by combining the skin colour regions from
a set of face images with different skin colours. The
appearance of the skin-tone depends on the lighting
conditions. We introduce a illumination compensation
model, where the captured image in the RGB colour
space is converted into the YCbCr colour space
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because of the fact that the Intensity component can be
easily accessed in the YCbCr space. From the
converted image the Y and the Cb components are
removed there by retaining only the Cr Component.
Through experimentation it is evident that all the skin
candidates are rich in red colour [Fig 2].
It can be seen from the experimental results that along
with the skin region some red valued non skin regions
have also been highlighted. The Skin colour model is
applied on red rich candidates to extract only the valid
skin candidates. This model is tested on a database
which cumulates people from different parts of the
world having varied skin colours. The results obtained
exhibit an accuracy of about 99%.
2.2 BOUNDARY DETECTION
The detected skin region output from ICM is
converted into the binary form and the boundary of
each of the detected skin regions is detected and
marked [Fig 3].
2.3 SIGNATURE PLOT
Effective retrieval of similar shapes from image
database is a complex and time consuming problem.
In most of the cases referenced below it is a
compromise between accuracy and expected response
time. Direct comparisons of the images is insufficient
not only because of the High Raw Data
Dimensionality but also because of the shape
transformations (which occur due to different
viewpoints) can deteriorate the matching process and
thereby in turn may influence the face detection course
of action. In order to deploy and guarantee the high
quality matching we have proposed a technique which
deploys the Shape descriptors / Signatures of the
boundary under consideration. Owing to our extensive
study and ardent observation of the experimental
results it can be stated that the Signatures adequately
capture the shape characteristics and are typically
tailored to be immune to transformations such as
translation.
The Signature of a detected objects’ boundary is
plotted. The process is repeated until the signatures of
all the detected objects have been plotted. An
exhaustive study of the Signatures of the various
object boundaries throw light on the fact that the
signatures pertaining to the face candidates will be
lesser than the signatures corresponding to the other
detected skin candidates [Fig 4].
2.4 FACE CANDIDATE EXTRACTION
The valid face candidates are extracted by analyzing
the signatures. Thus giving rise to the valid face
candidates [Fig 5].
3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Our algorithm is evaluated on several face image
databases, including photo collections (indoor and
outdoor) and News Paper Photo collections. Face
databases readily available on World Wide Web,
designed solely for face detection and face
recognition, including FERET Face database [15],
[19], [34], [42] usually contain Gray scale images and
therefore, in our opinion are not suitable for evaluating
face detection algorithms. Most commonly, databases
used for face detection and face recognition include
the images taken from Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) database, MIT, FERET etc (See Table 1)
contain Gray scale images only. Because of this we
have made a humble effort to construct our own
database for face detection by collecting colour
photographs in high degree of variability captured by
using CCD Cameras, Digital Cameras, the World
Wide Web, photographs from news paper websites
and personal photo collections. These colour images
collected in our database are under varying lighting
conditions and with complex backgrounds. Further,
the images considered in our database contain
multiple faces with variations in colour, position,
scale, orientation, 3D Pose and facial expression.
Our algorithm can detect multiple faces of different
sizes with a wide range of facial variations in an
image. Our algorithm works efficiently for occluded
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faces (See Results), faces of any size, faces with
glasses, intensity variations etc. Our algorithm can
also detect the nonfrontal faces irrespective of the fact
that whether the eyes and nose are visible or not [42].
We would like to claim the superiority of our
approach over the approaches [6], [8], [9], [10], and
[42] in Face Detection.
A summary of the detection results, are presented in
the Table2. Subjects considered in our database belong
to several racial groups and lighting conditions. A
detected face is a correct detection with a small
amount of about 1% tolerance. The detection ratio is
computed by the ratio of the number of correct
detections in a gallery to that of all the human faces in
the gallery. The detection rate is around 99%, if the
images considered have faces camouflaged with the
background then the face detection efficiency comes
down to about 92%. The reason for this decrease in
the detection rate is due to the reason that the face is
merged with that of the background. The entire
database includes 225 images. One of the challenging
episodes in face detection is detecting faces in groups
and our algorithm gives very excellent detection
accuracy [Fig 6].
4. CONCLUSIONS
We through this research paper are putting forth a
humble effort in the form of an algorithm to detect
faces under varied conditions. Our detection algorithm
initially takes the colour image and applies the skin
illumination compensation model to modify the RGB
to YCbCr converted image suitably to detect the valid
skin regions. The detected skin regions are converted
into the binary format and the signatures
corresponding to each of the detected skin regions is
found and the skin region corresponding to the face
candidate is extracted by studying the signatures.
With these results, we can confidently state that our
method outperforms all the published, popular
methodologies.
 5. FIGURES AND TABLES stages involved in the Face Detection Process.
Figure 2 to Figure 6 in this section depicts the various

Input Color Image YCbCr Image Y and Cb removed

Image
Step 1 Step 2

Step 3

Signature method for Exact

Face Candidate Face Candidate Extraction Skin Region Detection
Extracted
Step 5 Step 4

Fig 1: Block Diagram Overview of the Algorithm

Fig 2: Modified YCbCr Image with the ‘Y’ and ‘Cb’ components removed from Step 2 of Figure 1.
Fig 3: Illustration to show the Generation of all possible Skin Regions from Step 2 of Figure 1.
Fig 4: Signatures of all possible Skin Regions generated in the Step 3 of Figure 1.
Fig 5: Valid Face Candidate Extracted from the Detected Skin Regions from Step 4 of Figure 1.
Fig 6: Experimental results for different cases Considering all Extraneous Conditions like Illumination Variation,
Complex Backgrounds, Skin Tone Variation, and Occlusion with different poses for Multiple Faces

Fig 2 to Fig 6 are uploaded on to our Research Website www.facedetect.741.com

TABLE 1 A Comparison of Our Approach with Related Recent, Popular Face Detection Approaches (Uploaded on to our Research
website www.facedetect.741.com)

TABLE 2 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

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Sl No Image Type (Both Indoor and No of Images in the Total No of Correct Face
Outdoor) Gallery Detections
01. Single Face with Complex Background 30 30
02. Multiple Faces With plain Background 40 40
03. Multiple Faces With Complex 65 65
Background
04. Single Face with very poor illumination 25 25
05. Multiple Faces with poor illumination 20 19
06. Single Occluded Face 10 10
07. Multiple faces with few faces occluded 31 30
TOTAL IMAGES = 225 TOTAL CORRECT DETECTIONS
= 223

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