Color corrected single scale retinex based haze removal and color correction for underwater images

Underwater images are affected by scattering of dust particles leading to hazy images. The difference in absorption of light at different wavelength leads to colorcast. Restoring underwater images from haze and colorcast degradation is a challenging task. This article proposes color corrected single scale retinex algorithm for the restoration of hazy and colorcast underwater images. Further, the illumination of the underwater image is enhanced through illumination enhancer. In order to correct colorcast, the underwater images intensity shifters are proposed. Blur, natural image quality evaluator, blind/referenceless image spatial quality evaluator, entropy, peak signal to noise ratio are the metrics used to evaluate the performance of the proposed restoration technique and compared the output with the existing techniques. Compared to the existing techniques the proposed algorithm prominently removes haze and colorcast present in underwater images. The study excludes retinex‐with‐reset models from consideration.