Image Capturing Apparatus Face Detection Brightness Correction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional image capturing apparatuses face challenges in adjusting exposure to optimize both main subject and background portions, often resulting in contract issues on the highlight side due to simple tone characteristic conversion.
Innovation Solution
An image capturing apparatus that includes a detecting unit for identifying main subject areas, a calculating unit for evaluating brightness and determining lightness improvement, and a photometry unit for dividing the subject into areas to calculate exposure control values, allowing for optimal correction of dark part gradation and maintaining contrast.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If luminance of the face area is increased in the conversion of the tone characteristic, then the face area is emphasized, but contract on the highlight side lowers causing problems in the background portion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different processing strategies to different regions of the image. The face detection unit identifies the face area, and the tone characteristic conversion is applied selectively to this detected region rather than the entire image. This allows the face to be emphasized with improved luminance while the background portion maintains its original contrast characteristics, thus resolving the contradiction between face emphasis and background contrast preservation.
2Illumination intensity
If exposure adjustment is performed to improve main subject brightness, then the main subject is emphasized, but the background portion suffers from loss of detail
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the image into distinct regions using face detection technology. By identifying the face area as a separate region from the background, the system can apply different processing parameters to each segment. The main subject (face) receives exposure adjustment for brightness improvement, while the background portion is excluded from this processing, thereby preserving its original detail information and avoiding the loss that would occur with global exposure adjustment.
Data Source
AI summary
An image capturing apparatus includes an image capturing unit, a generating unit, a detecting unit, and a calculating unit. The image capturing unit captures an image of a subject to generate image data. The generating unit generates a blurred image from the image data. The detecting unit detects a main subject area included in the image data. The calculating unit calculates an evaluation value regarding a brightness based on an image of the main subject area among the blurred image, and calculates an improvement amount of lightness used for performing a correction on dark part gradation of the image data generated by the image capturing unit based on the evaluation value being calculated. Therefore, it is possible to adjust the exposure and correct the dark part gradation optimally both for a main subject portion and a background portion.