Face detection in color images

Abstract

Human face detection is often the first step in applications such as video surveillance, human computer interface, face recognition, and image database management. We propose a face detection algorithm for color images in the presence of varying lighting conditions as well as complex backgrounds. Our method detects skin regions over the entire image, and then generates face candidates based on the spatial arrangement of these skin patches. The algorithm constructs eye, mouth, and boundary maps for verifying each face candidate. Experimental results demonstrate successful detection over a wide variety of facial variations in color, position, scale, rotation, pose, and expression from several photo collections.