Patent ID: 7106366

Claim:
A method for generating an enhanced compressed digital image, for comprising the steps of: a) capturing a digital image; b) generating additional information from a main subject belief map, containing a continuum of belief values, relating to the importance of a photographed subject and its corresponding background regions within the digital image; b1) extracting regions of homogeneous properties from the digital image; b2) extracting for each of the regions, at least one structural saliency feature and at least one semantic saliency feature; and b3) integrating the at least one structural saliency feature and the at least one semantic saliency feature using a probabilistic reasoning engine into an estimate of a belief that each region is the main subject; c) compressing the digital image to form a compressed digital image; d) associating the additional information with the compressed digital image to generate the enhanced compressed digital image; and e) storing the enhanced compressed digital image in a data storage device.