Analyzing partial face regions for red-eye detection in acquired digital images

1. A method for red-eye detection in an acquired digital image comprising:

acquiring a first image with a portable processor-based device having a processor and an image acquisition component including a lens and an image sensor;

using the processor;

analyzing one or more partial or full face regions, or combinations thereof, within the first image, including determining one or more characteristics of the first image;

using an eye model, identifying regions of an eye identified within at least one of the regions;

identifying one or more corrective processes including iris color correction that can be beneficially applied to said first image according to said one or more characteristics; and

applying said one or more corrective processes to said first image to generate a corrected image; and

electronically storing, transmitting, further processing or editing, or displaying the corrected image, or combinations thereof.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising detecting and correcting a red-eye defect in the eye region.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein said applying comprises applying a chain of two or more filters to said first image including an iris color correction filter and a red eye defect filter.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said analyzing is performed in part on a full resolution partial face region and in part on a subsample resolution of at least one different partial face region.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said first image comprises a sub-sampled copy of an acquired image.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analyzing comprises recognizing one or more faces or types of faces, or both, within the first image.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the applying comprises applying an iris color correction filter, including:

applying a pixel locator and segmentor;

applying a shape analyzer;

applying a falsing analyzer; or

applying a pixel modifier, or combinations thereof.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more corrective processes comprises a color space transformation.

9. One or more computer-readable media having digital code embedded therein for programming a processor to perform a method for iris color correction in an acquired digital image, wherein the method comprises any of the methods recited at claims 1 - 8 .

10. A portable processor-based device having an image acquisition component including a lens and an image sensor for capturing digital images, the device further including a processor being programmed by digital code embedded in one or more processor-readable media to perform a method for iris-color correction in an acquired digital image according to any of the methods recited at claims 1 - 8 .