Patent ID: 7602949

Claim:
A processing method for enhancing an appearance of a face located in a digital image that is processed in a user-interactive kiosk environment, the method comprising using a digital image processor to perform the steps of: acquiring an original digital image; detecting one or more faces in said original digital image, wherein said detecting comprises locating facial feature points on each of said faces and segmenting each of said detected faces into two or more regions using said facial feature points; identifying among said detected faces one or more faces meeting predetermined enhancement criteria to provide one or more enhanceable faces, wherein said enhancement criteria are based upon both size and sharpness of the respective said face in said original digital image; enhancing said one or more enhanceable faces to provide an enhanced image, wherein said enhancing comprises applying one or more enhancement filters to one or more of said regions of each of said enhanceable faces, said enhancement filters each being customized to a respective said region; displaying said enhanced image to the user; concurrent with said displaying, allowing the user to select one of: (a) continuing processing with said enhanced image, (b) continuing processing with said original image, and (c) manually retouching said original image to provide a retouched image; wherein said detecting, identifying, and enhancing steps are non-interactive with the user.