Underwater image/video enhancement using wavelet based color correction (WBCC) method

In this paper, a wavelet based color correction approach for the enhancement of underwater image/video is proposed. Firstly, the discrete wavelet transform is applied on input image to get its approximation and detailed coefficients. The detailed coefficients of these images are kept intact to preserve their structure whereas the approximation coefficients are utilized for color correction. Thereafter, the color correction factor (CCF) corresponding to the specific color cast is estimated, followed by the evaluation of gain values for each RGB component. Input image pixels are adjusted by multiplying the obtained gain values with corresponding RGB components. Finally, the enhanced image/video is achieved by applying inverse wavelet transform on these processed approximation and the detailed coefficients. The performance of the proposed method is validated by using PSNR and SSIM index quality metrics. Superior values of these metrics in comparison to some existing enhancement approaches demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.