Patent ID: 7933470

Claim:
A method for processing a digital image to alter the darkness thereof, including: isolating regions of the digital image wherein said regions include a plurality of image areas, said regions including those suitable for altering the darkness thereof, and extracting image data therefrom for the areas in at least one of said regions, wherein isolating regions of the digital image including those suitable for altering the darkness further includes applying extracted data from said region to a plurality of stages of chained look-up tables to summarize a plurality of corners in a first stage and to summarize patterns surrounding a center image area in a second stage to determine if a matching entry is present; using the extracted image data for said region, in conjunction with output from said chained look-up tables, producing modified image data by modifying data associated with at least one area in the region to alter the darkness of said region; and merging the modified image with the digital image to produce an output digital image having at least one region in which the darkness of the image is altered.