A user-friendly digital image processing procedure: technical implementation
Rodney Shaw · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2007
A huge number of consumer digital images are considered unsatisfactory for general use due to their poor image quality. Of this number a significant fraction actually possess an inherent quality, as acquired, and with relatively straightforward manipulation could be enhanced and thus become entirely satisfactory according to consumer preference. In fact around fifty percent of all digital images, including those acquired with high signal-to-noise ratio using sophisticated capture devices, are positioned at a significant distance from their optimum preferred image-quality state, as defined by the end user. An unconventional practical methodology has been developed that uses a novel image processing procedure, yet leads to a solution that can readily be applied in real-time by any unskilled consumer to obtain the preferred image-quality state for each individual digital image. The underlying scientific principles are now explored in further detail, and these are related to the practical image-quality outcomes. Examples are given of the transformations applied to specific image types in order to yield preferred image-quality, and these transformations are related directly to the selection process as operated by an unskilled user of the methodology.