CS589-04 Digital Image Processing

Lecture 6. Color Image Processing

Spring 2008
New Mexico Tech
 Color Fundamentals

1/2/2025 2
 Color Fundamentals

1/2/2025 3
 Color Fundamentals

► 6 to 7 million cones in the human eye can be divided into

three principal sensing categories, corresponding roughly
to red, green, and blue.
65%: red 33%: green 2%: blue (blue cones are the
most sensitive)

1/2/2025 4
 Color Fundamentals

1/2/2025 5
1/2/2025 6
 Color Fundamentals

► The characteristics generally used to distinguish one color

from another are brightness, hue, and saturation

brightness: the achromatic notion of intensity.

hue: dominant wavelength in a mixture of light waves,

represents dominant color as perceived by an observer.

saturation: relative purity or the amount of white light

mixed with its hue.

1/2/2025 7
 Color Fundamentals

► Tristimulus
Red, green, and blue are denoted X, Y, and Z, respectively.
A color is defined by its trichromatic coefficients, defined as

X
x=
X +Y + Z
Y
y=
X +Y + Z
Z
z=
X +Y + Z
1/2/2025 8
 CIE Chromaticity Diagram

It shows color
composition
as a function
of x (red) and
y (green)

1/2/2025 9
 RGB Color Model

1/2/2025 10
 RGB Color Model

Pixel depth

The total number of

colors in a 24-bit RGB
image is (28)3 =
16,777,216

1/2/2025 11
1/2/2025 12
 Safe RGB colors (or
safe Web colors) are
reproduced faithfully,
reasonably
independently of
viewer hardware
capabilities
1/2/2025 13
1/2/2025 14
 The CMY and CMYK Color Models

 C  1  R 
 M  = 1 − G 
    
 Y  1  B 
Equal amounts of the pigment primaries, cyan, magenta, and
yellow should produce black. In practice, combining these
colors for printing produces a muddy-looking black.

To produce true black, the predominant color in printing, the

fourth color, black, is added, giving rise to the CMYK color
model.
1/2/2025 15
 CMY vs. CMYK

1/2/2025 16

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK
 HIS Color Model

brightness: the achromatic notion of intensity.

hue: dominant wavelength in a mixture of light waves, represents dominant color

as perceived by an observer.

saturation: relative purity or the amount of white light mixed with its hue.

1/2/2025 17
 HIS Color Model

1/2/2025 18
 HIS Color Model

1/2/2025 19
 HIS Color Model

1/2/2025 20
 Converting Colors from RGB to HSI

► Given an image in RGB color format, the H component of

each RGB pixel is obtained using the equation

 if B  G
H =
360 −  if B>G

 1 
−1 
 ( R − G ) + ( R − B )  
 = cos  2
1/2 
 ( R − G ) + ( R − B )(G − B )  
2

  

1/2/2025 21
 Converting Colors from RGB to HSI

► Given an image in RGB color format, the saturation

component is given by

3
S = 1−  min( R, G, B)
( R + G + B)

1/2/2025 22
 Converting Colors from RGB to HSI

► Given an image in RGB color format, the intensity

component is given by

1
I = ( R + G + B)
3

1/2/2025 23
 Converting Colors from HSI to RGB

► RG sector (0  H  120 )

B = I (1 − S )
 S cos H 
R = I 1 + 
 cos(60 − H ) 
and
G = 3I − ( R + B )

1/2/2025 24
 Converting Colors from HSI to RGB

► RG sector (120  H  240 )

H = H − 120
R = I (1 − S )
 S cos H 
G = I 1 + 
 cos(60 − H ) 
and
B = 3I − ( R + G )
1/2/2025 25
 Converting Colors from HSI to RGB

► RG sector (240  H  360 )

H = H − 240
G = I (1 − S )
 S cos H 
B = I 1 + 
 cos(60 − H ) 
and
R = 3I − (G + B )
1/2/2025 26
1/2/2025 27
1/2/2025 28
1/2/2025 29