Using color distribution to effectively query image databases

We present here an effective image retrieval strategy based on the fuzzy evaluation of color image similarity. In this method both the query and the database images are displayed in device-independent space with a limited palette of perceptual significance. Image color distributions are represented by histograms, and a suitable similarity measure between histograms is also defined in order to model the perceptual similarity between their different colors. Experimental results on a database of some 200 images are reported.