Color Balance
Processing images for color is one of the easiest ways to identify an object within an image. However,
color is never constant and can change drastically based on the illumination (sunshine, incandescent bulb, etc.)
and even on the type of camera used. In an effort to reduce these effects the Color Balance module
was added to provide you both a manual and automatic way of adjusting the overall colors within an image.
If you're trying to detect color be sure to try the automatic mode of the Color Balancer which may
help your values to be more consistent from frame to frame.
The Color Balance module has similar results to the Equalize module but can provide a softer alignment
of colors that is more appealing than some of the results of the Equalize module.
Interface
Instructions
1. Adjustment Mode - select if you want to manually adjust the color balance or let RoboRealm make a
guess as to what a good color image should look like. If you select Automatic then all the manual
controls will be disabled.
2. Color Balance - if manual mode is selected you can drag each of the horizontal scroll bars to
change the values in each of the RGB channels. You can also use the spin up and down buttons to fine tune
the channel value or simply type it into the editable text box. For each channel you can increase or
decrease the value. Increasing the value will add more of that color into the image while
decreasing it will remove that color and allow the other colors to dominate.
By adjusting the levels it is possible to remove dominant colors within the image to create a more
heterogeneous color image.
3. Tone Balance - if you find that using the above adjustments do not sufficiently adjust the
current image select a different intensity level to adjust instead. The three levels are Shadow, Midtone, or
Highlight and focus the color changes in the lower, middle and upper intensity regions. Thus if you have
a very bright image whose dominant color is red you would select the Highlight option and adjust the
Red level negatively.
4. Preserve Intensity - as you adjust the color channels the image may change in overall intensity. Select
the "Preserve Intensity" checkbox to ensure that the image keeps its overall intensity level when adjusting
the colors.
5. Adjust Intensity - when in Automatic mode you can also select to adjust the image intensity in
addition to the color. This will ensure very dark or very light images are adjusted to better
reveal the overall image details.
Example
| Source | Color Balanced (automatic) |
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See Also
Equalize
Normalize
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