Patent ID: 6690822
Filing Date: 2004-02-10
Classification: G06K,G06T

Abstract:
A method for detecting skin color in a digital image having pixels in an RGB color space, comprising the steps of:a) performing statistical analysis of the digital color image to determine the mean RGB color values; b) if the mean value of any one of the colors is below a predetermined threshold, applying a transformation to the digital image to move skin colors in the image toward a predetermined region of the color space; c) converting the digital image, or the transformed digital image from step (b), from the RGB space to a generalized RGB space, to produce a gRGB digital image; d) detecting skin color pixels within the gRGB digital image; e) forming a first skin color image mask based on the detected skin color pixels; f) generating a masked gRGB image using the first skin color image mask; g) converting the masked gRGB image to a hue image; h) removing possible blond hair color pixels from the hue image to produce a modified hue image; i) forming a second skin color image mask based on the skin color pixels in the modified hue image; j) if the second skin color image mask is smaller than the first skin color image mask by a predetermined amount, selecting the first skin color image mask, otherwise, selecting the second skin color image mask; and k) employing the selected skin color image mask to locate the skin color pixels in the digital color image.