Segment dependent dynamic multi-histogram equalization for image contrast enhancement

Histogram equalization (HE) method proved to be a simple and most effective technique for contrast enhancement of digital images. However it does not preserve the brightness and natural appearance of the images, which is a major drawback. To overcome this limitation, several Bi- and Multi-HE methods have been proposed. Although the Bi-HE methods significantly enhance the contrast and may preserve the brightness, the natural appearance of the images is not preserved as these methods suffer with the problem of intensity saturation. While Multi-HE methods are proposed to further maintain the brightness and natural appearance of images, but at the cost of contrast enhancement. In this paper, two novel Multi-HE methods for contrast enhancement of natural images, while preserving the brightness and natural appearance of the images, have been proposed. The technique involves decomposing the histogram of an input image into multiple segments based on mean or median values as thresholds. The narrow range segments are identified and are allocated full dynamic range before applying HE to each segment independently. Finally the combined equalized histogram is normalized to avoid the saturation of intensities and un-even distribution of bins. Simulation results show that, for the variety of test images (120 images) the proposed method enhances contrast while preserving brightness and natural appearance and outperforms contemporary methods both qualitatively and quantitatively. The statistical consistency of results has also been verified through ANOVA statistical tool.