Patents by Inventor Heemin Kwon

Heemin Kwon has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5959720
    Abstract: A method of color balance determination for use by a color copying apparatus utilizing a gray estimate established as a functional relationship among at least three basic color density values measured from regions within multiple image frames of a film order. This functional relationship is preferably a fitted line to a set of measured density values from which density values from regions of high color saturation have been excluded. To discriminate these high color saturation regions, the color saturation is determined relative to a gray point calculated as a weighted average of minimum density and image average density values. Further improvement in the gray estimate is achieved by limiting the set of measured density values to regions of high modulance ("edge effect") within the image frames.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 22, 1996
    Date of Patent: September 28, 1999
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Heemin Kwon, Kenneth A. Carlson
  • Patent number: 5822453
    Abstract: A method of estimating the scene contrast from a digital image, the method comprises the steps of: forming a Laplacian histogram distribution; determining, from the Laplacian histogram, first and second thresholds which eliminate substantially uniform areas or a substantially textured portion of the digital image; selecting pixels which are based on the first and second thresholds from the digital image; forming a histogram from the sampled pixels; computing a standard deviation of the sampled histogram; and estimating contrast of the digital image by comparing the computed standard deviation with a predetermined contrast for determining contrast of the input image in relationship with the predetermined contrast.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 1996
    Date of Patent: October 13, 1998
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Hsien-Che Lee, Heemin Kwon
  • Patent number: 5644647
    Abstract: A photofinishing image processing operator detects failures in the performance of a scene balance mechanism on a digitized image and enables a photofinisher to interactively correct for such failures before the failed image has been processed and an unacceptable output image printed. Whenever a failed image is identified, one or more reasonably low resolution versions of the image as processed by the scene balance mechanism are displayed to the photofinishing operator, together with a request for image adjustment information that is used to modify or correct the color balance of the image. In response to this user input information, the image processor adjusts color balance parameters of the scene balance mechanism, so that the digitized image processed by the modified scene balance mechanism will yield a print of acceptable color balance quality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 1990
    Date of Patent: July 1, 1997
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Patrick Andre Cosgrove, Robert Melvin Goodwin, Heemin Kwon, Anthony Scalise
  • Patent number: 5594816
    Abstract: The method of the present invention reduces noise in digital photographic images by decomposing the digital image into smooth regions and edge regions and by electronically blurring the smooth regions. Smooth regions are areas lacking any sharp detail, such as blue sky. Edge regions are regions containing sharp detail, such as grass. The method operates by choosing a set of neighborhood pixel types from a matrix of pixels representing an image. For each target pixel in the image, all neighborhoods that include the target pixel are considered and a linear least squares regression is computed to fit a plane to the code values of the pixels in each neighborhood, resulting in a goodness of fit and least squares estimate for the code value at the target pixel. Finally, a noise reduced code value for the target pixel is computed as a normalized, weighted sum of the least squares estimates for the target pixel, summed over all the neighborhoods containing the target pixel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 1995
    Date of Patent: January 14, 1997
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Martin C. Kaplan, Heemin Kwon
  • Patent number: 5563963
    Abstract: The present invention reduces noise in digital photographic images based on the assumption that images may be decomposed into two types of regions, smooth regions and edge regions. Smooth regions are areas of the image lacking any sharp detail, such as blue sky. Edge regions are regions containing sharp detail, such as edges and textured regions (such as grass). The present method reduces noise in the smooth regions by a mathematical blurring technique based on least squares regression. The blurring does not degrade the sharpness of the image, because there are no sharp details in the smooth regions. Edge regions are left undisturbed to maintain sharpness, but the noise is less noticeable in those regions than in the smooth regions. The method operates upon the luminance and chrominance component of a digital image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 23, 1991
    Date of Patent: October 8, 1996
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Martin C. Kaplan, Heemin Kwon
  • Patent number: 5533149
    Abstract: The method of the present invention reduces noise in digital photographic images by decomposing the digital image into smooth regions and edge regions and by electronically blurring the smooth regions. Smooth regions are areas lacking any sharp detail, such as blue sky. Edge regions are regions containing sharp detail, such as grass. The method operates by choosing a set of neighborhood pixel types from a matrix of pixels representing an image. For each target pixel in the image, all neighborhoods that include the target pixel are considered and a linear least squares regression is computed to fit a plane to the code values of the pixels in each neighborhood, resulting in a goodness of fit and a least squares estimate for the code value at the target pixel. Finally, a noise reduced code value for the target pixel is computed as a normalized, weighted sum of the least squares estimates for the target pixel, summed over all the neighborhoods containing the target pixel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 23, 1991
    Date of Patent: July 2, 1996
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Martin C. Kaplan, Heemin Kwon
  • Patent number: 5475506
    Abstract: In a color photographic printer of the type having a film scanner having a 50% green spectral response between 522.+-.5 nm and 570.+-.2.5 nm and peaking at 550 nm, a lowpass cutoff filter for lowering the upper cutoff wavelength of the green channel response is added to the green channel to improve the color correction of the printer for all color films presently in use.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 1993
    Date of Patent: December 12, 1995
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Heemin Kwon, Patrick A. Cosgrove, Kenneth A. Carlson, Mark S. Leader
  • Patent number: 5398077
    Abstract: A luminance signal is formed from an original color signal and is used to determine a new luminance. The original color signal is then adjusted to have the new luminance in a way that does not change the hue or saturation of the original color. The method is embodied in an analog or a digital circuit and in the alternate may be may be emulated in a general purpose computer. The method permits a change in color signals which affect the overall brightness only in a non-linear way, while adding only a small amount of additional hardware or computation to implement the invention.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 19, 1992
    Date of Patent: March 14, 1995
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: David R. Cok, Heemin Kwon
  • Patent number: 5091972
    Abstract: The present invention efficiently and quickly computes the fit parameters for a noise reduction method wherein a digital image is first decomposed into two types of regions; smooth regions and edge regions. Within the digitized image a plane fit parameter is computed at every point. The computation of the fit parameters incorporates convolutions carried out in an efficient manner by the use of a slide sum technique.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 1990
    Date of Patent: February 25, 1992
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Heemin Kwon, Martin C. Kaplan
  • Patent number: 5081692
    Abstract: A pseudo center weighted local variance in the neighborhood of an image pixel determines the amplification factor multiplying the difference between the image pixel and its blurred counterpart before it is combined with the original image. The amplification factor is computed for each pixel in the image, and varies from a minimum value of about -1 when the center weighted variance is at a minimum value to some maximum value when the center weighted variance reaches a maximum value. The pseudo center weighted variance is computed by convolving the local neighborhood surrounding each image pixel with a kernel of center weights having a maximum value at the center pixel. The pseudo center weighted variance is the difference between the center weighted mean of the source of the local neighborhood of image pixels and the square of the center weighted mean.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 1991
    Date of Patent: January 14, 1992
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Heemin Kwon, Jeanine T. Liang
  • Patent number: 5010504
    Abstract: A block transform image processing method employs singular value decomposition to reduce noise without affecting texture and edge detail. A nonlinear gain function based on the measured statistics of the singular values for image noise is generated. The image is filtered to produce a detail image and a low pass filtered image. The detail image is divided into blocks and the blocks are transformed to produce singular vectors and arrays of singular values. The nonlinear gain function is applied to the arrays of singular values and an inverse SVD transform is applied to the modified singular values to produce a processed detail image. The processed detail image is combined with the low pass filtered image to produce a processed image having reduced noise.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 12, 1989
    Date of Patent: April 23, 1991
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Hsien-Che Lee, Hui-Jung Lee, Heemin Kwon, Jeanine Liang
  • Patent number: 4945502
    Abstract: A block transform image sharpening method employs singular value decomposition to boost texture and edge detail while not boosting shaded (uniform) areas of the image characterized by a lower signal-to-noise ratio while at the same time reducing noise in other areas of the same image not containing much edge detail or texture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 27, 1988
    Date of Patent: July 31, 1990
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: Heemin Kwon, Jeanine T. Liang
  • Patent number: 4745465
    Abstract: A digital color image processing method includes generating color reproduction functions by normalizing samples of color values from the image, and processing the color components of the color digital image by applying the color reproduction functions to the respective color components of the digital image. The samples of color values are selected from the digital image by operating on a luminance component of the digital color image with an image detail detection operator to detect regions of the image representing luminance detail, and operating on the color components of the digital image in the luminance detail regions with a contrast detection filter to detect the contrast of the color components of the image in the luminance detail regions. The color values in the luminance detail regions are separated into contrast intervals and histograms in the contrast intervals are formed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 1986
    Date of Patent: May 17, 1988
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: Heemin Kwon