An image contrast enhancement method based on genetic algorithm

Contrast enhancement plays a fundamental role in image/video processing. Histogram Equalization (HE) is one of the most commonly used methods for image contrast enhancement. However, HE and most other contrast enhancement methods may produce un-natural looking images and the images obtained by these methods are not desirable in applications such as consumer electronic products where brightness preservation is necessary to avoid annoying artifacts. To solve such problems, we proposed an efficient contrast enhancement method based on genetic algorithm in this paper. The proposed method uses a simple and novel chromosome representation together with corresponding operators. Experimental results showed that this method makes natural looking images especially when the dynamic range of input image is high. Also, it has been shown by simulation results that the proposed genetic method had better results than related ones in terms of contrast and detail enhancement and the resulted images were suitable for consumer electronic products. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.