Patent Document ID: 20030235333
Application ID: 10179360
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A system for white balancing images using facial color as a reference signal, comprising: a face detector operable to receive a digital image and to detect a human face within the digital image; a skin tone extractor coupled to the face detector, the skin tone extractor operable to extract a skin tone from the digital image, the extracted skin tone associated with a human face detected by the face detector; a plurality of reference skin tones; a skin tone comparator coupled to the skin tone extractor, the skin tone comparator operable to access the reference skin tones and to compare the extracted skin tone to the reference skin tones in order to identify a reference skin tone corresponding to the extracted skin tone; and a balance parameter generator coupled to the skin tone comparator, the balance parameter generator operable to generate a balance parameter based on the extracted skin tone and the corresponding reference skin tone, the balance parameter operable to be applied to the digital image to white balance the digital image.