Abstract: A Retinex algorithm based on bilateral filtering is proposed to the question of the apparition of halo artifacts in the presence of high contrast edges using exiting Retinex image enhancement. Firstly, this algorithm decomposes the original image into the illuminant image and the reflectance image using the bilateral filter which has the function of edge-preserving, then different strategies are used to compress the illuminant image and to enhance the reflectance image. At last, it composes the two part images to a new image. The algorithm can be verified from subjective visual effects and objective image quality assessment. The experimental results show that it has good enhancement result and can avoid halo artifacts.

Key words: computer application, image enhancement, bilateral filtering, Retinex