Color restoration for objects of interest using robust image features

Illumination distortion due to uncontrolled lighting can severely degrade the color appearance of a photo. Frequently, the desired colors for objects in a newly taken query image are found in a previously stored database image. Then, the goal is to change the colors in the query image to match the colors in the database image. This paper presents a color restoration system that automatically retrieves a database image which matches the query image, even if the two images are taken from different viewpoints and under different illuminations. Robust features enable both accurate retrieval from the database and efficient sampling of the color differences between the query and database images. A spatially varying color mismatch model is generated, and the colors of the query image are effectively restored.