Image Enhancement of Low-Light Scenes with Near-Infrared Flash Images

Abstract. We present a novel technique for enhancing an image captured in low light by using near-infrared flash images. The main idea is to combine a color image with near-infrared flash images captured at the same time without causing any interference with the color image. In this work, near-infrared flash images are effectively used for removing annoying effects that are commonly observed in images of dimly lit environments, namely, image noise and motion blur. Our denoising method uses a pair of color and near-infrared flash images captured simultaneously. Therefore it is applicable to dynamic scenes, whereas existing methods assume stationary scenes and require a pair of flash and no-flash color images captured sequentially. Our deblurring method utilizes a set of near-infrared flash images captured during the exposure time of a single color image and directly acquires a motion blur kernel based on optical flow. We implemented a multispectral imaging system and confirme...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: ACCV
• Authors: Sosuke Matsui, Takahiro Okabe, Mihoko Shimano, Yoichi Sato
• Keywords: ACCV 2009, Color Image, Computer Vision, Image, Near-infrared flash Images