IMAGE PROCESSING

Caroline Petitjean

PPT5 :
- Intensity transformation
- Contrast enhancement
- Image thresholding
Intensity transformation
• In order to modify the image histogram, one can design
an intensity transformation
• This transformation is defined via a function M:

How many connex objects in this image,

with 4-connexity?
Output image Input image
Intensity transformation
• What does this transformation?
Intensity transformation
• Image inversion (negative)
• Some transformations are applied on the image on the
left. Find the corresponding results!
 Gamma correction
• Non linear
transformation:

• F(n) = pow(n,gamma)
Contrast enhancement
• How to enhance the image contrast? Suggest a
transformation.
Histogram stretching
• It consists in an affine transformation of the grey levels, so
that the resulting image leverage the whole intensity range.
Histogram stretching
Histogram stretching
Histogram stretching
Histogram equalization

• The goal of histogram equalization aims at flattening the

histogram as much as possible
Histogram equalization
• Let us compute the cumulated histogram

Histogram
Number of
Original pixels with
image intensity ≤ n

0 255
Cumulated
histogram
 Histogram equalization

Histogram
Original
Output grey
image
level

255
Equalized
histogram

0
0 255
Image after
Input grey level
equalization
Transformation
Histogram equalization
Histogram equalization
Other intensity transformation
• What is the output of this transformation ?
Binarization via thresholding
• If I(x,y) > threshold, then It(x,y) = 1
• If I(x,y) <= threshold, then It(x,y) = 0
 Thresholding: different thresholds
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T  64
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T  150
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T  127
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T  180
300

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Image thresholding
• How to chose the threshold
value?

• Manually by analyzing the histogram

• Automatic method to find the minimum

betwwen 2 main peaks (Otsu)
Multiple thresholds
Image thresholding
• What if object and background have mixed grey levels?
Image thresholding
• Global thresholding: one value for the whole image
• Global thresholding is not relevant when background and
object are not homogeneous:
Image thresholding
• Global thresholding: one value for the whole image

• Local thresholding:
• Let’s split the image into sub-images or windows
• Compute one threshold value for each sub-image
• Apply thresholding for each window individually
Local thresholding

global

local