Electronic image color plane reconstruction

An image processing method of correcting the colour of a colour image, the image including a plurality of image pixels and each image pixel having one or at least two colour values and having a luminance value representing the intensity of the colour value for that pixel in the image, the method comprising the steps of:

• I) for each colour value, generating from the pixels for that colour value a low spatial frequency monochrome image including smoothed image pixels;
• II) generating one or more corresponding corrected smoothed images by applying a colour correction function to the smoothed image pixels for one or more of the colour values, said function including for the or each colour value a contribution from corresponding smoothed image pixels having one or more of the other colour values;
• III) generating one or more high spatial frequency luminance images from the image;
• and
• IV) combining the high spatial frequency luminance image(s) with the or each of the corrected low spatial frequency monochrome images to form the full colour image.

An image processing device for correcting the colour of a colour image, the device comprising a processor, software, and a memory, in which the memory is arranged to store image data representative of a colour image having at least two sets of image pixels, each set having a distinct colour value, and each pixel having a luminance value representing the intensity of the colour value for that pixel in the colour image, wherein the processor, software and memory are operable to:

• a) for each colour value, generate from the pixels for that colour value a low spatial frequency monochrome image consisting of a set of smoothed image pixels;
• b) for at least one colour value, select a sub-set of the smoothed image pixels;
• c) apply a colour correction function to the or each subset of smoothed image pixels in order to generate one or more corresponding sub-sets of corrected smoothed image pixels, said function including for each colour value a contribution from corresponding smoothed image pixels in one or more of the other sets of smoothed image pixels;
• d) complete one or more sets of corrected smoothed image pixels by at least one of interpolating and extrapolating from the or each of the corrected smoothed image pixels to generate similarly corrected smoothed image pixels not in the original sub-set of smoothed image pixels;
• and
• e) use the or each set of corrected smoothed image pixels to generate a corrected colour image.

An image processing device for correcting the colour of a colour image, the device comprising a processor, software, and a memory, in which the memory is arranged to store image data representative of a plurality of image pixels, each image pixel having one of at least two colour values and each pixel having a luminance value representing the intensity of the colour value for that pixel in the image, wherein the processor, software and memory are operable to:

• A) for each colour value, generate from the pixels for that colour value a low spatial frequency monochrome image consisting of smoothed image pixels;
• B) apply a colour correction function to the smoothed image pixels for one or more of colour values in order to generate one or more corresponding corrected smoothed images, said function including for the or each colour value a contribution from corresponding smoothed image pixels having one or more of the other colour values;
• C) generate one or more high spatial frequency luminance images from the image;
• and
• D) combine the high spatial frequency luminance image(s) with the or each of the corrected low spatial frequency monochrome images to form the full colour image.

An image processing method of correcting the colour of a colour image, the image including a plurality of image pixels, each image pixel having at least one of at least two colour values and having at least one value representing the respective intensity of each colour value for that pixel in the image, the method comprising the steps of:

• I) for each colour value, generating from the pixels for that colour value a noise-reduced image including filtered image pixels;
• II) generating one or more corresponding corrected filtered images by applying a colour correction function to the filtered image pixels for one or more of the colour values, the function including, for each colour value, a contribution from corresponding filtered image pixels having one or more of the other colour values;
• III) generating one or more high speed spatial frequency luminance images from the images;
• and
• IV) forming a corrected colour image by combining the one or more high spatial frequency luminance images with the one or more corrected filtered images.