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Lightness and Retinex Theory (1971)
| Venue: | JOURNAL OF THE OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA |
| Citations: | 497 - 6 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Land71lightnessand,
author = {Edwin H. Land and John J. McCann},
title = {Lightness and Retinex Theory},
journal = {JOURNAL OF THE OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA},
year = {1971},
pages = {1--11}
}
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Abstract
Sensations of color show a strong correlation with reflectance, even though the amount of visible light reaching the eye depends on the product of reflectance and illumination. The visual system must achieve this remarkable result by a scheme that does not measure flux. Such a scheme is described as the basis of retinex theory. This theory assumes that there are three independent cone systems, each starting with a set of receptors peaking, respectively, in the long-, middle-, and short-wavelength regions of the visible spectrum. Each system forms a separate image of the world in terms of lightness that shows a strong correlation with reflectance within its particular band of wavelengths. These images are not mixed, but rather are compared to generate color sensations. The problem then becomes how the lightness of areas in these separate images can be independen t of flux. This article describes the mathematics of a lightness scheme that generates lightness numbers, the biologic correlate of reflectance, independent of the flux from objects INDEX HEADINGS: Vision; Color. Most of us assume that, subject to a variety of compensatory factors, we see in terms of the amount of the light coming from objects to our eye; we think that in a particular scene there is more light coming from
Keyphrases
retinex theory separate image strong correlation biologic correlate lightness scheme remarkable result visible spectrum compensatory factor color show particular scene visual system short-wavelength region lightness number object index heading independent cone system color sensation particular band
