Patent ID: 7627189

Claim:
A sharpness adjustment method for adjusting the sharpness of an image obtained by an endoscope, the method comprising the steps of: determining with a processor a sharpness enhancement amount for each pixel of the image based on the value of each pixel which forms a luminance distribution image representing the distribution of luminance of the image; determining with the processor a portion contributing to brightness, which represents a portion of the sharpness enhancement amount, which contributes to adjustment of brightness, and a portion contributing to saturation, which represents a portion of the sharpness enhancement amount, which contributes to adjustment of saturation, for each pixel of the image so that the sum of the portion contributing to brightness and the portion contributing to saturation is equal to the sharpness enhancement amount; and adding with the processor an adjustment value of saturation, which is obtained by weighting the value of each pixel of the image based on the portion contributing to saturation, and an adjustment value of brightness, which is obtained by weighting the value of each pixel of the luminance distribution image, which corresponds to each pixel of the image, based on the portion contributing to brightness, to the value of each pixel which forms the image.