Color in Image and Video Processing

Color perception is of paramount importance in applications, such as digital imaging, multimedia systems, visual communications, computer vision, entertainment, and consumer electronics. Color is essential in digital cinematography, modern consumer electronics solutions, and digital photography system such as digital cameras, video displays, video-enabled cellular phones, and printing solutions. In these applications, compressionand transmission-based as well as color management algorithms provide the foundation for cost effective, seamless processing of visual information through the processing pipeline. Color plays a significant role in many pattern recognition and multimedia systems, where color-based feature extraction and color segmentation are used to detect and classify objects in application areas such as biomedical image processing and geomatics. During the last fifteen years, important contributions were made in the field of color image processing due to the utilization of color vision, colorimetry, and color appearance. A number of special issues, including survey papers that review the state-of-the-art in the area of color image processing, have been published in the last few years. This special issue on color image and video processing aims to fill the gap in the existing literature and to assist researchers and practitioners who work in the area. Simple inspection of the pertinent scientific literature reveals a significant increase in the number of papers devoted to color image processing in the image processing community. The motivation behind this issue is the desire to provide both a comprehensive overview of the most recent trends and an outline of possible future research directions in color image and video processing. The special issue discusses problems currently under research by the color image processing community and outlines methodologies and approaches for their solution. It focuses on the most promising research areas in color imaging science and covers research topics which, in the opinion of the editors at least, will be the main focus of research attention in the years to come. This issue is intended for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners who have a good knowledge in color science and digital imaging and who want to know and understand the most recent advances and research developments in digital color imaging.