# Contrast Enhancement of Brightness-Distorted Images by Improved Adaptive Gamma Correction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.04427 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.04427/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 Sep 2017.

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [PSENet: Progressive Self-Enhancement Network for Unsupervised Extreme-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00712/) (2022)
- [User-Guided Personalized Image Aesthetic Assessment based on Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07488/) (2021)
- [Light-VQA+: A Video Quality Assessment Model for Exposure Correction with Vision-Language Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.03333/) (2024)
- [Identification and classification of exfoliated graphene flakes from microscopy images using a hierarchical deep convolutional neural network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.15252/) (2022)
- [Image contrast enhancement based on the Schr"odinger operator spectrum](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02264/) (2024)
- [Tuning adaptive gamma correction (TAGC) for enhancing images in low ligh](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.19574/) (2025)
- [No-reference Quality Assessment of Contrast-distorted Images using Contrast-enhanced Pseudo Reference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.05053/) (2025)
- [Multi-Temporal Frames Projection for Dynamic Processes Fusion in Fluorescence Microscopy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.10392/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As an efficient image contrast enhancement (CE) tool, adaptive gamma correction (AGC) was previously proposed by relating gamma parameter with cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the pixel gray levels within an image. ACG deals well with most dimmed images, but fails for globally bright images and the dimmed images with local bright regions. Such two categories of brightness-distorted images are universal in real scenarios, such as improper exposure and white object regions. In order to attenuate such deficiencies, here we propose an improved AGC algorithm. The novel strategy of negative images is used to realize CE of the bright images, and the gamma correction modulated by truncated CDF is employed to enhance the dimmed ones. As such, local over-enhancement and structure distortion can be alleviated. Both qualitative and quantitative experimental results show that our proposed method yields consistently good CE results.