Abstract:

An effective and simple enhancement method for remotely sensed images is proposed to
improve the visual quality of the image. Proposed method uses the hazy image model for image
enhancement. Hazy image model consists of two unknown parameters, the global air light and
the transmission map. The proposed method determines the global air light and the transmission
map. The proposed method enhances the images better than the former methods, as well as keeps
the original reflectance values of the input image better compared to the traditional remote
sensing enhancement methods.
An image defined in the “real world” is considered to be a function of two-real variables,
for example, a (x, y) with a as the amplitude (e.g. brightness) of the image at the real coordinate
position (x, y)
Image processing is the study of any algorithm that takes an image as input and returns an image
as output.
It includes the following:
1. Image display and printing
2. Image editing and manipulation
3. Image enhancement
4. Feature detection
5. Image compression.
Image enhancement:
Image enhancement process consists of a collection of techniques that seek to improve the visual
appearance of an image or to convert the image to a form better suited for analysis by a human or
machine. The principal objective of image enhancement is to modify attributes of an image to
make it more suitable for a given task and a specific observer.
IMAGE ENHANCEMENT TECHNIQUES:
The existing techniques of image enhancement can be classified into two categories:
 Spatial domain enhancement
 Frequency domain enhancement.

EXAMPLES OF IMAGE ENHANCEMENT TECHNIQUES:

1. Noise removal
2. Contrast adjustment
1)Spatial domain enhancement:
Spatial domain techniques are performed to the image plane itself and they are based on direct
manipulation of pixels in an image. The operation can be formulated as
g (x, y) =T [f (x, y)],
where g is the output, f is the input image and T is an operation on f defined over some
neighborhood of (x, y).
According to the operations on the image pixels, it can be further divided into 2 categories:
 Point operations and
 Spatial operations

FREQUENCY DOMAIN METHODS:

First compute the Fourier transform of the image to be enhanced, multiply the result a filter and
take the inverse transform to produce the enhanced image.
ENHANCEMENT METHODS:
 Contrast stretching
 Noise reduction
 Intensity Adjustment
 Histogram equalization
 Image thresholding

Contrast stretching:
Low-contrast images can result from poor illumination, lack of dynamic range in the image
sensor, or even wrong setting of a lens aperture. • The idea behind contrast stretching is to
increase the dynamic range of the gray levels in the image being processed.
Noise reduction:
This is accomplished by averaging and median filtering. These are as follows:
Median Filtering:
The median filter is normally used to reduce noise in an image by preserving useful detail in the
image.
The median filter considers each pixel in the image in turn and looks at its nearby neighbors to
decide whether or not it is representative of its surroundings. The median is calculated by first
sorting all the pixel values from the surrounding neighborhood into numerical order and then
replacing the pixel being considered with the middle pixel value.

Noise removal using Averaging:

Image averaging works on the assumption that the noise in your image is truly random. random
fluctuations above and below actual image data will gradually even out as one averages more
and more images. If you were to take two shots of a smooth gray patch, using the same camera
settings and under identical conditions (temperature, lighting, etc.), then you would obtain
images similar to those shown on the left.

If we were to take the pixel value at each location along the dashed line, and average it with
value for the pixel in the same location for the other image, then the brightness variation would
be reduced as follows:
Intensity Adjustment:
Intensity adjustment is a technique for mapping an image's intensity values to a new range. • For
example, rice.tif is a low contrast image? The histogram of rice.tif, shown in Figure below,
indicates that there are no values below 40 or above 225. If you remap the data values to fill the
entire intensity range [0, 255], you can increase the contrast of the image.

Histogram Equalization:
is a technique that generates a gray map which changes the histogram of an image and
redistributing all pixel’s values to be as close as possible to a user – specified desired histogram.
It allows for areas of lower local contrast to gain a higher contrast.

Image thresholding:
a) Thresholding is the simplest segmentation method.
b) The pixels are partitioned depending on their intensity value T.
CONCLUSION:
The material presented is representative of spatial domain technique commonly used in practice
for image enhancement.
This area of image processing is a dynamic field, and new technique and applications are
reported routinely in professional literature and in new product announcement.
In addition to enhancement, this serves the purpose of introducing a number of concepts such as
intensity adjustment, contrast stretching, noise filtering, etc. that will be useful in various fields.