Patent ID: 7092581

Claim:
A method of balancing areas of varying density within a digital image, comprising: (a) receiving an unequalized digital image from a digital imaging device, the image having a plurality of pixels each with an unequalized intensity value; (b) associating a blurred intensity value to each pixel; (c) selecting an image enhancement strength factor for the image; (d) selecting an exposure compensation factor for the image; (e) determining a mask intensity value for each pixel by calculating the linear convex combination of the pixel's blurred intensity value and the exposure compensation factor, wherein the degree of convex combination is determined by the strength factor; (f) determining an enhanced intensity value for each pixel by dividing the pixel's unequalized intensity value by the pixel's mask intensity value, and then scaling the dividend by the exposure compensation factor; then (g) displaying an enhanced image having a plurality of pixels at their enhanced intensity values.