Contrast enhancement by searching discriminant color projections in dermoscopy images

Abstract

The use of color as a strategy for enhancing the contrast is useful for conducting feature extraction procedures in images with high illumination disorders; hence, in order to correct contrast problems in images that were erroneously acquired, a method that automatically searches the discriminant projections of the color map depending on the original data dispersion is proposed. This method is based on techniques such as Fisher discriminant analysis (FDA) and principal component analysis (PCA). Because this is an unsupervised method, it can be used in images that were captured without taking into account the acquisition protocol and with non-uniform illumination. The method was tested using a set of 40 dermoscopy images, and a performance greater than 82% was obtained.

Keywords

• contrast enhancement
• color
• projection PCA
• projection FDA
• dermoscopy images
• components