Local Color Transfer via Probabilistic Segmentation by Expectation-Maximization

We address the problem of regional color transfer between two natural images by probabilistic segmentation. We use a new Expectation-Maximization (EM) scheme to impose both spatial and color smoothness to infer natural connectivity among pixels. Unlike previous work, our method takes local color information into consideration, and segment image with soft region boundaries for seamless color transfer and compositing. Our modified EM method has two advantages in color manipulation: First, subject to different levels of color smoothness in image space, our algorithm produces an optimal number of regions upon convergence, where the color statistics in each region can be adequately characterized by a component of a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). Second, we allow a pixel to fall in several regions according to our estimated probability distribution in the EM step, resulting in a transparency-like ratio for compositing different regions seamlessly. Hence, natural color transition across regio...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: CVPR
• Authors: Yu-Wing Tai, Jiaya Jia, Chi-Keung Tang
• Keywords: Color Smoothness, Computer Vision, CVPR 2005, Enhanced Color Transfer, Natural Color Transition, Regional Color Transfer, Seamless Color Transfer