Underwater Image Enhancement Algorithm Based on Improved Retinex Method

Abstract

The paper aimed at improving the problem of color distortion, blur and underexposure, which caused by absorption of water and light scattering in the underwater environment, and uneven light caused by artificial illumination in the deep sea. According to the ideal of removing the color distortion after the image blurring removal [1], a novel method of image enhancement has propose, combining multi-scale retinex (MSR) and color correction algorithm based on color histogram quantization. The color correction algorithm based on color channel histogram was used to adjust the image to improve problems of the low contrast, color attenuation, overall fuzzy, unclear details and so on. The experimental results showed that the proposed method can effectively reduce the influence of color distortion and highlight the image details, so that the underwater color image has better visual effect.