Fast Face Detection Algorithm Based on Improved Skin-Color Model

Automatic face recognition is one of the most challenging tasks in fields of computer vision and pattern recognition, and face detection is the first critical step in full automatic face recognition system. The skin-color feature is an effective feature, but this feature is interfered easily. This paper proposes a method of face detection from a picture based on an improved skin-color model. Firstly, use an improved "reference white" method to remove the interference of non-skin-color region, and then design color- classifier based on statistic large number of skin-color pixels and detect each pixel in color picture is skin-color or non-skin-color through the color-classifier; finally, detect face on the candidate regions and remove the non-face regions, and then locate the face regions. Experimental results show that the algorithm can effectively detect face with skin-color interference under complex background.