Bi-histogram equalization using two plateau limits

Histogram equalization is an effective method for contrast enhancement on images, but it suffers from some problems such as the tendency to change the mean brightness, loss of information and the introduction of saturation levels which causes an unnatural appearance in the resulting image. Due to the aforementioned problems, a variety of histogram equalization methods have been developed in order to preserve the image brightness, thus avoiding saturation levels that cause loss of information. In this paper, the bi-histogram equalization using two plateau limits (BHE2PL) for histogram equalization is proposed. BHE2PL divides the global histogram into two sub-histograms; then, each sub-histogram is modified by two plateau limits in order to avoid over-enhancement of the image. Experimental results indicate that the BHE2PL method exhibits a better mean brightness preservation compared to methods found in the state of the art; in addition to also presenting a reasonable computation time.