Automatic White Balance with Facial Color Features as Reference Color Surfaces

摘要

An automatic white balance method and an electronic media device incorporating the method deploy characterized individual human facial color features set of a user or users of the device as reference color surfaces in automatic white balance illuminant estimation and color adjustments, which could improve illuminant estimation accuracy, provide flexible color adjustment options and render the image color to each user's own satisfaction taking into account user preferred rendition as target values through a human-machine interactive interface.

主权项

1. A method of automatic white balance of image and video media in an electronic media device, comprising:
acquiring one or a plurality of digital images of scenes under a sufficient color profile range of illumination conditions applicable to automatic white balance including a face of a user or users of the device, including capturing a digital image or images of a user or users using a lens and image sensor, or receiving a digital image or images of a user or users after capturing using a lens and image sensor, or a combination thereof; acquiring the facial color features set of the user or users including the Intrinsic Values and Target Value of the color profiles of the skin tone portion, eye ball white and teeth by a color profile extraction process; acquiring a digital image that needs automatic white balance and, conducting face detection, segmentation and recognition in the digital image, and in case of a recognized face being identified belonging to the face of a user matching a user entry in the facial color features set; conducting illuminant estimation based on segmented facial parts Features in the facial color features set resulting in C2, and based on other parts of the image resulting in C1, and in final estimation C3 taking into account both C1 and C2; conducting automatic white balance gain adjustment and color enhancement based on the illuminant estimation results and the above acquired Facial Color Features Set of the user or users.