Fingernail area extraction using distribution of colors

A fingernail detection method with the allowance of the palm existence proposed. However, some fingernail areas cannot be extracted as nail candidate areas if they don´t reflect enough light toward the camera. The authors found it a key to solve this problem to use the distribution of colors. The authors propose a new nail area extraction using this. In the experiments, the authors confirmed that our system using the proposed method could detect only fingernails at least 85% from -90 to -50 degrees and from 50 to 90 degrees and worked well from -50 to -30 degrees.