Method and apparatus for color image correction

1. A method of image processing, comprising:

separating a luma component and a chroma component of an image signal to provide the luma component and the chroma component;

splitting the luma component of the image signal into first luma component and a second luma component;

performing Retinex-like processing of only the first luma component using surround function values to provide a Retinex-like processed first luma component; and

adding the Retinex-like processed first luma component and the second luma component, so that a resulting luma component can either be bigger or smaller than the luma component of the image signal, and adding the resulting luma component and the chroma component of the image signal to provide a processed image signal.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the image pixels of the first luma component are averaged over a plurality of image pixels of the first luma component to provide a plurality of surround function values.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the act of averaging comprises:

summing N values of the image pixels of the first luma component to provide a summed result; and

dividing the summed result by N to provide the average surround function values.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the chroma component of the image signal is not modified.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein the act of averaging comprises averaging the image pixels over a block of image pixels of the first luma component.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the act of averaging comprises averaging the image pixels over varying sized blocks of image pixels of the first luma component.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein the act of averaging the image pixels includes averaging the image pixels over a 128×128 sized block.

8. An apparatus for image processing comprising:

a separator device that separates a luma component and a chroma component of an image signal to provide the luma component and the chroma component and that splits the luma component of the image signal into first luma component and a second luma component;

a Retinex-like processor that performs a Retinex-like process on the first luma component using surround function values to provide a Retinex-like processed first luma component;

a summing device that adds the Retinex-like processed first luma component and the second luma component so that a resulting luma component can either be bigger or smaller than the luma component of the image signal, and adding the resulting luma component and the chroma component to provide a processed image signal.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising an averaging module that averages at least some of the image pixels of the first luma component over a plurality of image pixels of the first luma component to provide a plurality of surround function values.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the averaging module comprises:

a summing device that sums N values of the image pixels of the first luma component to provide a summed result; and

a divider module that divides the summed result by N.

11. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the averaging module is configured to average the image pixels of the first luma component over a block of image pixels of the first luma component.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the averaging module is configured to average the image pixels over varying sized blocks of image pixels of the first luma component.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the averaging module is configured to average the image pixels over a 128×128 sized pixel image box.

14. A processor readable non-transitory storage product encoded with instructions operable to cause the processor to:

separate a luma component and a chroma component from an image signal to provide the luma component and the chroma component;

split the luma component of the image signal into first luma component and a second luma component;

perform Retinex-like processing using surround function values to provide a Retinex-like processed first luma component; and

add the Retinex-like processed first luma component and the second luma component, so that a resulting luma component can either be bigger or smaller than the luma component of the image signal, and adding the resulting luma component and the chroma component of the image signal to provide a processed image signal.

15. The product of claim 14 , further comprising instructions operable to cause the processor to average at least some of the image pixels of the first luma component over a plurality of image pixels of the first luma component to provide a plurality of surround function values.

16. The product of claim 15 , further comprising instructions operable to cause the processor to:

sum N values of the image pixels of the first luma component to provide a summed result; and

divide the summed result by N to provide the average surround function values.

17. The product of claim 14 , further comprising instructions operable to cause the processor to not modify the chroma component of the image signal.

18. The product of claim 15 , further comprising instructions operable to cause the processor to average the image pixels over a block of image pixels of the first luma component.

19. The product of claim 18 , further comprising instructions operable to cause the processor to average the image pixels over varying sized blocks of image pixels of the first luma component.

20. The product of claim 18 , further comprising instructions operable to cause the processor to average the image pixels over a 128×128 sized block.