Method of selective aperture sharpening and halo suppression using chroma zones in CMOS imagers

1. A method of suppressing a dark halo in an imager using processing circuitry, comprising the steps of:

using a high pass filter, extracting an edge value from an image;

with the processing circuitry, determining a chroma zone associated with the edge value extracted from the image;

modifying the edge value based on the chroma zone associated with the extracted edge value;

demosaicing the image; and

applying the modified edge value to the demosaiced image, wherein determining the chroma zone includes determining a chroma value of Cr and Cb in a Y-Cr-Cb color space, and modifying the edge value includes multiplying the edge value by a predetermined gain value, k, depending on the chroma value of Cr, wherein if the value of Cr is less than zero, then the gain value k is set to a value that is greater than one, in order to sharpen the modified edge value in the image.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein if the value of Cr is greater than zero, then the gain value k is set to a value that is at least zero and less than one, in order to suppress the dark halo in the modified edge value.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein if the value of Cr is greater than zero, then the gain value k is set to a value that is at least zero and less than one, in order to suppress the dark halo in the modified edge value having pink, magenta, red, or orange chroma regions.

4. A method of suppressing a dark halo in an imager using processing circuitry, comprising the steps of:

using a high pass filter, extracting an edge value from an image;

with the processing circuitry, determining a chroma zone associated with the edge value extracted from the image;

modifying the edge value based on the chroma zone associated with the extracted edge value;

demosaicing the image; and

applying the modified edge value to the demosaiced image, wherein determining the chroma zone includes determining a chroma value of Cr and Cb in a Y-Cr-Cb color space, and modifying the edge value includes multiplying the edge value by a predetermined gain value, k, depending on the chroma value of Cr, wherein if the value of Cr is less than zero, then the gain value k is set to a value that is at least one and less than two, in order to sharpen the modified edge value in the image.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the image has cyan, blue or green chroma regions.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein extracting the edge value from an image includes determining an intensity value of Y in a Y-Cr-Cb color space, wherein determining the chroma zone includes determining a chroma value of Cr and Cb in the Y-Cr-Cb color space, and wherein modifying the edge value includes modifying the intensity value of Y based on the Cr and Cb values in the Y-Cr-Cb color space.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the edge value is suppressed for warm hues in the Y-Cr-Cb color space, and the edge value is sharpened for cold hues in the Y-Cr-Cb color space.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein the edge value is sharpened or suppressed based on a chroma region associated with the intensity value of Y, and the chroma region is one region in multiple chroma regions of a Cr-Cb plane in the Y-Cr-Cb color space.

9. The method of claim 1 including the step of:

with the processing circuitry, gamma correcting the demosaiced image, wherein the demosaicing and gamma correcting steps are performed on a Bayer image, prior to modifying the edge value based on the chroma zone.

10. A machine-implemented process for suppressing a halo caused by sharpening an image captured with a digital camera using processing circuitry, the machine-implemented process performing the following steps:

using a high pass filter, extracting an edge value from a raw Bayer color pattern;

with the processing circuitry, determining a gain of the extracted edge value;

locating the extracted edge value, as a Y value, in a Y-Cr-Cb color space;

locating a chroma zone corresponding to the Y value in a Cr-Cb plane of the Y-Cr-Cb color space; and

modifying the gain of the extracted edge value based on the located chroma zone, wherein if the chroma zone is located in cool color hues, including cyan, blue and green, then modifying the gain of the extracted edge value includes increasing the gain of the extracted edge value.

11. The process of claim 10 wherein if the chroma zone is located in warm color hues, including pink, red and orange, then modifying the gain of the extracted edge value includes reducing the gain of the extracted edge value.

12. A machine-implemented process for suppressing a halo caused by sharpening an image captured with a digital camera using processing circuitry, the machine-implemented process performing the following steps:

with the processing circuitry, identifying an intensity value of each pixel in a prescribed group of pixels;

calculating a luminance value of a current pixel using nearest neighbor calculations in the prescribed group of pixels;

locating a chroma zone in a Y-Cr-Cb color space corresponding to the luminance value of the current pixel; and

modifying the luminance value of the current pixel based on the located chroma zone, wherein if the chroma zone is located in a region having a Cr value greater than zero, then modifying the luminance value of the current pixel includes reducing the luminance value.

13. The process of claim 12 wherein if the chroma zone is located in a region having a Cr value less than zero, then modifying the luminance value of the current pixel includes increasing the luminance value.

14. The process of claim 12 wherein the luminance value of the current pixel is orthogonal to the chroma zone in the Y-Cr-Cb color space.

15. The process of claim 12 wherein the luminance value of the current pixel is modified based on color hues in the Y-Cr-Cb color space.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the edge value is negative.