Visibility Restoration of Diverse Turbid Underwater Images- Two Step Approach

Abstract

Underwater Images are of degraded quality due to the scattering and absorption. The color cast and turbidity that hinder the visibility of such images are due to the sediments present that vary for diverse environments. Shallow water images are very turbid. The images too suffer from negative effects of artificial illumination when capturing data. Here a two-step approach is formulated to restore and enhance the underwater images from different locations. The images are then blended using a wavelet fusion considering the mean of the images. The output images demonstrate reduced haze, improved contrast and enhanced sharpness with adequate removal of the color cast. The results project better visibility on both subjective and objective measures compared to recent restoration and enhancement methods.