Introduction to Color Image Representation
• Color is a powerful descriptor which simplifies object
identification and extraction from a scene.
• Human being can perceive far more higher number of
color shades than gray scale shades.
• Color Image Processing is divided into two major
categories:
1. Full color: The images are acquired with a full-color
sensor, such as a color TV or color scanner.
2. Pseudo-color: Assign a color to a particular
monochrome intensity or a range of intensities.
Pseudo color images are grayscale which are assigned
color based on the intensities values.
Color Fundamentals
• Figure shows, the color spectrum may be divided into
six broad regions: violet, blue, green, yellow, orange
and red.
Color Fundamentals
• Visible light is composed of relatively narrow
band of frequencies in electromagnetic
spectrum.
Characterization of light
• If the light is Achromatic, its only attribute is
its intensity. Achromatic light is what viewers
see on a black and white television set.
• Chromatic light spans the electromagnetic
spectrum from 400 to 700nm.
• Three quantities describe the quality of
chromatic light: radiance, luminance and
brightness.
Characterization of light
• Radiance (Watts-W): It is the total amount of
energy coming out of the light source.
• Luminance (lumens-lm):It gives a measure of
amount of energy an observer perceives from a
light source.
• Brightness(no unit): It is subjective measure
that is practically impossible to measure. It
corresponds to achromatic attribute of
intensity.
Color Standardization
• CIE (Commission international Eclairage) has
standardized specific wavelength values to three
primary colors:
• Blue= 435.8nm
• Green= 546.1nm
• Red=700nm
Primary & Secondary Colors
• The primary colors can be added to produce the secondary
colors of light-
o Magenta (red plus blue)
o Cyan (green plus blue)
o Yellow (red plus green)
• Mixing the three primaries or secondary with its opposite
primary color, in the right intensities produces white light.
Primary & Secondary Colors
• The primary colors of pigments are magenta, cyan and
yellow and the secondary colors are red, green and blue.
• A proper combination of the three pigment primaries or a
secondary with its opposite primary produces black.
Characterizing Color
• One color can be distinguished from other by using
three characteristics.
• Brightness- It embodies the achromatic notion of
intensity.
• Hue- Dominant color (wavelength of light) as
perceived by an observer. It is measure of color of the
object & its hue is expressed as an angle.
• Saturation- It refers to the relative purity or the
amount of white light mixed with a hue. Or It is a
measure of the richness of color.
