To perform de-scattering of blurred turbid underwater images, we herein develop a physical model of the underwater polarization imaging process, study the effect of underwater scattering on the transmission of polarized light, and then propose a method for de-scattering such turbid underwater images on the basis of a specific polarization state. First, a polarization camera is used to conduct imaging contrast experiments in turbid water. Next, the optimal imaging interval for a specific degree and angle of polarization is selected using the optimization algorithm, following which the target image after de-scattering is obtained. Finally, subjective vision and the objective indicators are evaluated and used as bases for analyzing the target image in different situations. The experimental results indicate that the subjective visual quality of the target image significantly improved, the enhancement measure by entropy (EME) value of the objective evaluation index is increased by 455%, the variance is increased by 124% and 38%, and the average gradient is increased by 19% and 6%. Therefore, the method proposed in this paper can facilitate simple and effective suppression of the scattering of turbid underwater images, increase in the image contrast, and improvement in the image quality.
