Automatic skin enhancement with visible and near-infrared image fusion

Skin tones, portraits in particular, are of critical importance in photography and video, but a number of factors, such as pigmentation irregularities (e.g., moles, freckles), irritation, roughness, or wrinkles can reduce their appeal. Moreover, such "defects" are oftentimes enhanced by scene lighting conditions. Starting with the observations that melanin and hemoglobin, the key components of skin color, have little absorption in the near-infrared (NIR) part of the spectrum, and that the depth of light penetration in the epidermis is proportional to the incident light's wavelength, we show that near-infrared images provide information that can be used to automatically smooth skin tones in a physically realistic manner. Specifically, we developed a prototype camera system that consists of capturing a pair of visible/near-infrared images and separating both of them into base and detail layers (akin to a low/high frequency decomposition) with the fast bilateral filter. Sm...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: MM
• Authors: Sabine Süsstrunk, Clément Fredembach, Daniel Tamburrino
• Keywords: Image, MM 2010, Multimedia, Skin Tones, Smooth Skin Tones