Highlight Removal Emphasizing Detail Restoration

In existing highlight removal methods, research on highlights on metal surfaces is relatively limited. Therefore, this paper proposes a new, simple, effective method for removing highlights from metal surfaces, which can better restore image details. Additionally, the approach presented in this paper is highly effective for highlight removal in everyday real-world highlight scenarios. Specifically, we first separate the image’s illumination space based on the Retinex model and generate a highlight mask using the mean plus standard deviation method. Then, based on the mask, we transform the original image and the image at the corresponding mask position to the V channel of the HSV space, achieving the effective elimination of highlights. To enhance the details of the restored image, this paper introduces a method involving adaptive Laplacian sharpening operators and gradient fusion for detail enhancement at highlight removal positions. Finally, a highlight-free image with well-preserved details is obtained. In the experimental phase, we validate the proposed method using real welding seam highlight datasets and real-world highlight datasets. Compared with the existing methods, the proposed method achieves high-quality qualitative and quantitative evaluation.