Measurement of color noise perception

The perception of color noise in a scene depends on surrounding colors and luminance. Knowing the nature of our perception more precisely, we can develop better image processing technique. To understand the perception of color noise quantitatively, we have conducted subjective and quantitative experiments using a modified grayscale method with modeled additive color noise. We also investigated how color noise is perceived, depending on (a) background color, (b) the color noise vector and (c) luminance. These modeled noises are Gaussian noises that form both an isotropic and an anisotropic vector in the CIELAB´s ab-plane. The results show that an eye´s chromatic aberration has a large influence on color noise perception. The color noises are easy to see when the average color is blue or when the average luminance is about L*≈35. We validate our experimental results by adding equally perceived color noises to an image.