Tone mapping for shortwave infrared face images

Sensing in the Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) range has only recently been made practical. The SWIR band is not visible to the human eye but shows shadows and contrast in its imagery. Moreover, SWIR sensors are highly tolerant to challenging atmospheric conditions such as fog and smoke. However, fundamental differences exist in the appearance between images sensed in visible and SWIR bands. In particular, human faces in SWIR images do not match human intuition and make it difficult to recognize familiar faces by looking at such images. In this paper, we deal with a novel tone mapping application for SWIR face images. We propose a technique to map the tones of a human face acquired in the SWIR band to make it more similar to its appearance in the visible band. The proposed technique is easy to implement and produces natural looking face images.