Adaptive fuzzy intensity measure enhancement technique for non-uniform illumination and low-contrast images

A new enhancement technique based on fuzzy intensity measure is proposed in this study to address problems in non-uniform illumination and low contrast often encountered in recorded images. The proposed algorithm, namely adaptive fuzzy intensity measure, is capable of selectively enhancing dark region without increasing illumination in bright region. A fuzzy intensity measure is calculated to determine the intensity distribution of the original image and distinguish between bright and dark regions. Image illumination is improved, whereas local contrast of the image is increased to ensure detail preservation. Implementation of the proposed technique on grayscale and color images with non-uniform illumination images shows that in most cases (i.e., except for processing time), the proposed technique is superior compared with other state-of-the-art techniques. The proposed technique produces images with homogeneous illumination. In addition, the proposed method is computationally fast (i.e., 1 s) and thus can be utilized in real-time applications.