Channel reduction and applications to image processing

Oftentimes when one is dealing with digital color images it is desired that some sort of image processing be performed on the spatial information. Cur rent methods require that one process each of the channels (also called pla nes or colors) of an image separately, which increases the number of comput ations significantly. A novel, to our knowledge, approach to reducing the n umber of channels in a color image is presented. The channel-reduction proc ess is intended to facililate such color image-processing situations essent ially by the separation of the spectral information from the spatial inform ation, as in a paint-by-numbers picture. In this case the image processing need be applied only to a single channel of data and the color added afterw ard. With a compression ratio of slightly less than 3:1 the method is not i ntended to compete with existing compression methods but rather to permit t he processing of images in a compressed state. (C) 2000 Optical Society of America OCIS code: 100.2000.