A logarithmic law based histogram modification scheme for naturalness image contrast enhancement

Abstract

In this paper, a new logarithmic histogram modification technique for image contrast enhancement with naturalness preservation has been proposed. Traditional histogram equalization scheme usually causes extreme contrast enhancement, which results in unnatural look and artifacts. The proposed technique first enhances the contrast of the image globally through addition and logarithmic law based modification scheme, thereafter the local details of the image are emphasized through the coefficient scaling directly in the compressed domain using discrete cosine transformation. The proposed method can enhance the image contrast uniformly with less number of parameters without losing its basic features. Experimental results show that the proposed method preserves the natural appearance of the image and yields better perceptual quality as compared to the state-of-the-art techniques.