Patent ID: 7733390

Claim:
An image-processing device, comprising: an image-input unit configured to receive an input image; a fluctuation-extraction unit coupled to the image-input unit and configured to extract a local-fluctuation component from the input image and to generate a local-fluctuation image containing the local-fluctuation component; a modulation-signal-generation unit coupled to the image-input unit and the fluctuation-extraction unit, and configured to generate a modulation signal for modulating the input image to the local-fluctuation image; a level-compression unit coupled to the modulation-signal-generation unit and configured to level-compress the modulation signal; and a gradation-correction unit coupled to the level-compression unit and configured to modulate the input image with the level-compressed modulation signal, thereby producing a gradation-corrected image; wherein the input image is a color image comprising a plurality of components, and the gradation-correction unit produces the gradation-corrected image by performing weighted addition of a multiplied image and an offset-corrected image, the gradation-correction unit producing the multiplied image by multiplying the level-compressed modulation signal and the plurality of components, and producing the offset-corrected image by subjecting the plurality of components of the input image to offset correction so as to align with the multiplied image in signal level.