Method and system for removal of red eye effects

• US 8,073,250 B2
• Filed: 12/04/2007
• Issued: 12/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Vide, Adolfo Pinheiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Alavi, Amir
• Application Number:
  US11/950,356
• Publication Number:
  US 20080285850A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,463 Days
• Field of Search: 382/103, 382/115, 382/117, 382/162, 382/165, 382/167, 382/254, 382/274, 382/275, 382/299, 358/1.13, 358/1.9, 358/500, 358/509, 358/518, 358/520, 358/527, 396/155, 396/158, 348/239, 348/370, 348/576, 348/586
• US Class Current: 382/167
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/193 Preprocessing; Feature extraction

Abstract

A method of performing red eye correction in an image including storing a high resolution image on a server computer, transmitting a low resolution image derived from the high resolution image, from the server computer to a client computer, displaying the low resolution image on a display device connected to the client computer, receiving from a user an indication of a selected location within the displayed low resolution image, partially automatically defining an outline of an area in the low resolution image within which area red eye correction is to be carried out, by the client computer, based on the user'"'"'s selected location, carrying out red eye correction on the low resolution image only within the area, by the client computer, and transmitting parameters of the area from the client computer to the server computer. A system is also described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method performed by a computing system, comprising:

displaying a first image on a display device associated with a first computing device;

automatically defining in a selected location an outline of an area in the first image within which area red eye correction is to be performed;

performing at the first computing device red eye correction within the outlined area; and

transmitting from the first computing device to a second computing device parameters of the corrected portion of the area.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising causing the second computing device to perform red eye correction based at least in part on the parameters on a corresponding second image stored at the second computing device.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the area is approximately circular and the parameters include a center of the area.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the outline is adjusted manually.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving at the first computing device the first image from the second computing device.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the first image is a low resolution version of a second image stored at the second computing device.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving an indication of the selected location within the displayed first image.

8. A system, comprising:

a central processor unit;

a component associated with a first computing device configured to display a first image;

a component associated with the first computing device configured to automatically define in a selected location of the first image an outline of an area in the first image within which area red eye correction is to be performed; and

a component associated with the first computing device configured to transmit parameters of the area from the first computing device to a second computing device.

9. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component associated with the first computing device configured to receive user input that adjusts the outlined area.

10. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component associated with the first computing device configured to receive user input that identifies the selected location of the first image.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein the area is approximately circular.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein a center of the area is positioned approximately over a center of an eye identified in the first image.

13. The system of claim 8 wherein an extent of the area is at least partially defined based at least in part on a color of locations in the area.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the extent of the area is at least partially defined based at least in part on a redness criterion of locations in the area.

15. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component associated with the first computing device configured to cause the second computing device to perform based at least in part on the transmitted parameters red eye correction on a corresponding second image stored at the second computing device.

16. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component associated with the first computing device configured to receive the first image from the second computing device.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the first image is a low resolution image corresponding to a higher resolution image stored at the second computing device.

18. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component associated with the first computing device configured to receive an indication of a selected location within the displayed first image.

19. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component associated with the second computing device configured to perform red eye correction on a second image within an area of the second image corresponding to the area outlined at the first computing device.

20. A computer-readable storage device storing computer-executable instructions, comprising:

instructions to display a first image on a display device associated with a first computing device;

instructions to receive an indication of a selected location within the displayed first image;

instructions to automatically define in the selected location an outline of an area in the image within which area red eye correction is to be performed;

instructions to perform at the first computing device the red eye correction within the outlined area; and

instructions to transmit parameters of the area from the first computing device to a second computing device.

21. The computer-readable storage device of claim 20 further comprising instructions to cause the second computing device to perform based on the received parameters red eye correction on a corresponding second image stored at the second computing device.

22. The computer-readable storage device of claim 21 wherein the second image is a higher resolution image corresponding to the first image.

23. The computer-readable storage device of claim 20 further comprising instructions to receive the first image from the second computing device.

24. A computer-readable storage device storing computer-executable instructions, comprising:

instructions to automatically define an outline of an area in an image within which area red eye correction is to be performed;

instructions to automatically reposition the area by moving the area to a location in the image at which a number of pixels satisfying a redness criterion on a periphery of the area is most; and

instructions to perform red eye correction only within the area.

25. The computer-readable storage device of claim 24 wherein the area is a circular region.

26. The computer-readable storage device of claim 24 wherein the defined area is modified based on user input that centers the area within an eye.

27. The computer-readable storage device of claim 24 wherein an extent of the area is at least partially automatically defined based on a color of locations in the area.

28. The computer-readable storage device of claim 24 wherein the area is approximately centered on an eye identified in the image.

29. The computer-readable storage device of claim 24 further comprising re-centering the area based on received user input.

30. The computer-readable storage device of claim 24 further comprising instructions to employ a redness criterion to define the outline of the area.

31. The computer-readable storage device of claim 30 wherein the redness criterion generally excludes skin tone coloration.