Abstract:
The systems and methods of the present invention enable the simultaneous and automatic corrections of digital images. The systems and methods of the present invention contain an Intelligent Expert-System (IES) for processing a single digital image, selected group of digital images and a batch of digital images. The expert-system analyzes each digital image automatically, independent of any other images, extracting plurality of image characteristics, and performing image quantifications and classifications. The digital image is then corrected using fuzzy logic techniques, according to the quantifications of the various characteristics and the expert-system rule base and knowledge base. The expert system components can be customized in respect to subjective user definition and criteria.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     The present invention is related to the field of digital photofinishing, digital imaging, online photography, and home color digital imaging devices and to the field of rule-base expert-systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to utilizing rule-base expert-system technology and fuzzy logic techniques to enable simultaneous and automatic correction of digital images.  
       BACKROUND OF INVENTION  
       [0002]     The digital Photofinishing systems, the online Photography systems and the home color printers use digital images. Digital images are created by a digital camera or by a scanner, which scans films or photographs. These images are processed as following: 
        Traditional Photofinishing systems use the films directly to produce the photo prints. A film holds analog images data, obtained by a film camera. In the film digital workflow, the Photofinishing system scans the film to first produce digital images. The digital images are then processed and printed on the Photofinishing printer.     The digital (without films) Photofinishing workflow uses digital images created mostly by digital cameras. Similarly to the previous case, the digital images have to be processed and printed on the Photofinishing printer.     An online Photography service, prepares Photo prints from digital images obtained through the Web (or other communication channels).     For home users, the digital images can be printed on home color printers using photo paper.        
 
         [0007]     In all the above cases, in order to obtain high quality photo prints or visual displays, there is a need to process the digital images. There is a need to perform operations on every digital image, in order to: 
    1) Correct the image deficiencies introduced by the camera sensors and camera operator (light conditions, focus problems . . . etc.).     2) Recalculate the image color data and prepare it for the printing process, by making adjustments to compensate for the differences between the color characteristics of the digital image creator (film type, scanner or digital camera) and the color characteristics of the printer and the paper type.     3) To recalculate the image color data and prepare it for the printing process, by making adjustments to compensate for the differences between the color characteristics of the digital image creator (film type, scanner or digital camera) and the color characteristics of the display device.    
 
         [0011]     The above operations require a complicated analysis of each digital image, which usually requires professional knowledge of a graphic art expert.  
         [0012]     In most cases, especially in a production environment, there is a large number of images to be processed in each set. Such operations require a fully automated solution with no human interference or manipulation. The variety of film types, scanner types, digital camera types, printer types and paper types require an intelligent automatic system, which can be controlled within the Photolab production process.  
         [0013]     In the digital age, the number of digital images created, stored, displayed and stored every day, is growing exponentially; also, many types of digital images are available. The need for a fully automatic system is enhanced by the fact that it is impossible for a human operator, amateur or professional, to manually manipulate and correct all created digital images.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0014]     It is thus the object of the present invention to provide systems and methods which utilize expert-system technology to enable the simultaneous and automatic processing of digital images in order to adjust and optimize the digital images and prepare them for printing or viewing.  
         [0015]     Another object of the present invention is to provide automatic methods for intelligent analysis of digital images. Each image is analyzed automatically and independently of other images, for a plurality of image characteristics, and quantification of those characteristics. The expert system automatically classifies each image, using the image characteristics, according to empirically acquired expert-system rule-base and expert-system knowledge base.  
         [0016]     The digital image is then corrected according to the image classification and the image characteristics quantification, using fuzzy-logic techniques and the expert-system knowledge base.  
         [0017]     It is yet another object of the present invention to provide methods and tools to customize the expert-system with respect to the subjective user definitions of digital the image quality criteria. It is still another objective of the present invention to enable the automatic execution of different equipment setups like: the digital images output device (printer type, screen type), paper type and the digital images input device (camera type).  
         [0018]     In particular, it is the objective of the present invention to enable the execution of correcting the digital image deficiencies and recalculation of the image color data, on a particular image, selected group of images and large number of images defined as a set (a batch of images). 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS  
       [0019]      FIG. 1  is a schematic representation of the architecture of first embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0020]      FIG. 2  is a schematic representation of the architecture of second embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0021]      FIG. 3  depicts an exemplary application using the first embodiment of the system of the present invention.  
         [0022]      FIG. 4  depicts an exemplary application using the second embodiment of the system of the present invention.  
         [0023]      FIG. 5  depicts an exemplary application using the third embodiment of the system of the present invention.  
         [0024]      FIG. 6  is a schematic representation of the Customization Interface blocks.  
     
    
     LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS COMMONLY USED IN THIS DOCUMENT  
       [0000]    
       
          IES=Intelligent Expert System  
          Digital Image=Image, photograph, photo, picture  
          Min=Minimal  
          Max=Maximal  
          CPU=Central Processing Unit  
          RAM=Random Access Memory  
          ESS=Expert System Settings  
       
     
       DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0032]     The systems and methods of the present invention are intended to overcome the shortcomings of existing digital image correction tools used by digital photofinishing systems, online photography systems and home color printers/displays. While all existing tools need the intervention of a manual operator in order to correct a wide variety of possible characteristics of the images, the present invention provides a system that enables a simultaneous and a fully automated digital image correction of a plurality of images which can be of large quantity, a few selected images or a single image.  
         [0033]      FIG. 1  describes the basic architecture of the present invention. At the core of the present invention is an Intelligent Expert-System (IES)  100 , the IES Knowledge-base  110  and the IES Rule-base  120 . The IES uses fuzzy logic techniques in order to simultaneously and automatically correct digital images.  
         [0034]     The digital image appearance criterion is defined subjectively by a particular human visual system. The expert system  100  is driven by an external set of parameters, which is part of the knowledge base  110 , that defines the subjective human visual system preferences in term of: General appearance (all types . . . dark type), Color (natural . . . colorful), contrast, brightness, Crisp (sharp) or soft, Hues . . . and so on and so forth.  
         [0035]     In the system of the present invention, which uses the architecture illustrated in  FIG. 1 , the expert system external parameters are set to default values, which are a result of a long empirical study on thousands of digital images.  
         [0036]     The Analysis Module  130  analyzes every input image  10  for a plurality of image characteristics, the Quantification Module  150  quantifies each image characteristic and the digital image is classified by the Classification Module  140  as image of a specific type.  
         [0037]     The IES is using the input from  130 ,  140  &amp;  150  regarding the input image  10 , and the expert system knowledge-base  110  &amp; rule-base  120  as input to the Decision Making Module  160 . The decision regarding which of the image characteristics need to be corrected, and how much correction should be applied, occur at this stage by the Decision Making Module  160 . The result is a sequence of operations on the original (input) image  10 , which are performed by the Correction Module  170 , in order to improve the quality of image  10 , as seen by the observer on the final Print or on the Viewing device.  
         [0038]     In  FIG. 1 , the expert system  100  makes a decision regarding the needed operations on the input digital image  10  according to the input image characteristics and IES external default parameters, as explained before. The result is a new improved image that satisfies the human observer and the set of rules as defined by the IES.  
         [0039]      FIG. 2  describes the architecture of a more sophisticated embodiment of the present invention that enables the user to control the performance of the expert system, and the quality of the result. In this embodiment, a Customization Module  200  is added to the basic architecture described in  FIG. 1  in order to allow the user the ability to customize the IES parameters to fit his quality needs or liking.  
         [0040]     The Customization Module  200  translates the user&#39;s image quality preferences to expert-system&#39;s image characteristics. Those preferences are considered at the Decision Making Module  160 , whenever decisions regarding which image characteristics are to be corrected, and how much correction should be applied. The result is a sequence of operations on the input image  10 , which are performed at the Correction Module  170 , in order to improve the input image quality to match the user&#39;s need or liking, as seen in the Printing or on the Viewing device.  
         [0041]      FIG. 3  describes an exemplary application using the first embodiment of the system of the present invention. Sets of digital images are stored in any storage media  400 : hard disk, disk on key, smart card, RAM . . . etc. Any input device such as a digital camera or scanner can create the digital images. The images final destination is a printer  600  or a Viewing device such as monitor  1000 . The IES  100  and the accompanying modules  130 ,  140 ,  150 ,  160  &amp;  170  are running on any CPU  300 , read the input digital images from storage  400  and perform the digital image correction according to first embodiment of this invention as described in  FIG. 1 . The expert system Knowledge-base and Rule-base are stored on any fast accessible storage media  500  such as a hard disk, RAM or flash memory.  
         [0042]     The viewing monitor  1000  displays both original digital image and the corrected digital image  1100 , and the user can choose whether to save in storage  400  the corrected image or not.  
         [0043]      FIG. 4  describes an exemplary application using the second embodiment of the system of the present invention. In this embodiment a Customization Module  200  and a Customization Interface  1200  are added to the system described in  FIG. 3  in order to enable the user the ability to customize the IES parameters to fit his image quality needs or liking. The Customization Interface  1200  gives the user the means to update the various IES parameters.  
         [0044]      FIG. 5  describes an exemplary application using the third embodiment of the system of the present invention. In this embodiment an Input Hot Folder and an Output Hot Folder are added to the system described in  FIG. 4 . The IES is picking every new image which enter the input Hot Folder, corrects the new image and put the new corrected image in the output Hot Folder.  
         [0045]     Image quality is subjective, and various people may have different quality and taste criteria. In addition, various printers, even from the same manufacturer, print the same digital image differently. Thus, the present invention enables the user to change the digital image characteristics according to his liking. The Customization Interface that is described in  FIG. 5  enables the customization of the image quality according to the user&#39;s preferences. The Customization Interface includes quality image characteristics (or settings), which are very natural to the human visual perception. Image characteristics like ‘General Appearance’  1210  that allow the selection of ‘Image Type Class’  1211  that varies from ‘All Types’ images to ‘Dark Type’ images, and the ‘Dark Details’  1212  characteristic that varies from ‘low’ details to ‘high’ details. This setting enables the correction of ‘Dark Details’ of a specific type of images as selected by the user (the ‘Image Type’ class  1211 ) and the weight of the correction (the ‘Dark Detail’  1212 ).  
         [0046]     The ‘Color’ quality characteristic  1220  enables the amount of the colorfulness ‘Natural/Colorful’  1221  of the image, the ‘Contrast’  1222  and the ‘Brightness’  1223 , by setting a value between Min to Max. Other quality characteristics like: ‘Crisp/Soft’  1230  enable to choose if the image will look crisp (sharp) or soft (smooth) and ‘Selective Hue’  1240  that enable to change the image hues.  
         [0047]     All above settings are derived from the image content and how the user would prefer the images to look like.  
         [0048]     The Customization Interface  1200  contains also ‘Paper Type’  1250  setting interface and ‘Devices’  1260  setting interface. The ‘Paper type’  1250  offers the user the possibility to consider various paper types defined by RGB values (can receive negative values too). The ‘Devices’ setting enable the upload of the source (Digital Camera, Scanner . . . or other) and destination (Printer, Monitor . . . or other) device profiles. The profiles can be ICC, ICM or propriety device profiles.  
         [0049]     The Customization Interface  1200  enables more detailed view for images taken on bad conditions, it can be used for: aerial, low light, surveillance, security and biology/medical research photos.  
         [0050]     The ‘Save Customized Values’  1270  interface enables saving the new customized settings in an ESS (Expert System Settings) disk file. The ESS file can be used later as a generic setting that describes the user desired look of the images. A set of predefined various settings represent different type of users preferences. The ESS files can be sent via email or other method to other stations, which run the system or apparatus of the present invention. The ‘Load Customized Values’  1280  interface enables loading a previously created ESS file to be used with coming sets of photos. The user can define his preferred image quality by generic naming like: Natural, Colorful . . . and others, for every such name a corresponding ESS file is created and saved.  
         [0051]     The Photofinishing station: kiosk/retail/online/home presents to the user by a user interface or an envelope, a set of flavors with empty checkmarks, to be filled by the user. Those settings are used by the IES later.  
         [0052]     The ESS files enable REMOTE control on printing/viewing devices that include an application of the current invention.  
         [0053]     The invention being thus described in terms of preferred embodiment and examples, it will be obvious that the same may be varied in many ways. Such variations are not to be regarded as a departure from the spirit and scope of the invention, and all such modifications as would be obvious to one skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of the following claims.