LIGHT SOURCE ESTIMATING DEVICE, LIGHT SOURCE ESTIMATING METHOD, AND IMAGING DEVICE AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

摘要

A light source estimating method for estimating the color characteristics of a light source with an unknown photographing scene from a sensor response in order to improve a color reproduction quality such as a white balance adjustment, wherein, in a projection conversion unit (6) using parameters obtained by computation that can be colorimetrically approximated from the known spectral sensitivity characteristics of an imaging means (4) with respect to a sensor response value (5) and from the assumed spectral characteristics of a test light source (1), a scene is projected on an image distribution (9) in an evaluation space independent of a photographing light source (2), and an evaluation unit (10) is used to estimate a correct photographing light source (2) by rating a reasonability for a plurality of test light sources (1) based on the distribution condition of the sample value of the projected scene.