Image-6 Grayscale

In this section, we'll look at the structure of grayscale vs. color images, and some code to play with that difference.

Gray Among The RGB - You Try It

Answer:

The RGB scale is calibrated so that when a color's three red/green/blue numbers are equal, the color is a shade of gray. E.g. red=50 green=50 blue=50 is gray, without any bias towards red, green, or blue hue. If a pixel were red=75 green=50 blue=50 it would be a bit reddish, but making them all equal, it's not towards any particular hue. The higher the red/green/blue numbers, the lighter the shade of gray.

Examples of gray colors in RGB:

red green blue color
50 50 50 dark gray
120 120 120 medium gray
200 200 200 light gray
250 200 200 not gray, reddish
0 0 0 black (a sort of gray)
255 255 255 white (ditto)

Red Liberty Example Problem

statue of liberty shown only in the red channel

Here is an image of the Statue of Liberty where all of the data is in the red values, so the whole image looks red (we saw this sort of image in an earlier puzzle solution). The green and blue values are all zero. This image looks quite wrong.

For this example, we'll write code to fix this image by copying the red value over to be used as the green and blue value. So for a pixel, if red is 27, set green and blue to also be 27. What is the code to do that? What will be the visual result of this?

red green blue color
65 0 0
113 0 0
204 0 0
19 0 0
... 0 0

image-gray1

 

Solution code:

  // your code here
  // Set green and blue values to be the same as the red value.
  pixel.setGreen(pixel.getRed());
  pixel.setBlue(pixel.getRed());
  // Usually code combines setRed() with getRed(),
  // but this code gets a value from one color
  // and sets it into another color.

Converting Color To Grayscale


the yellow flowers.jpg image

red green blue color
pixel-1 250 25 25
pixel-2 0 75 75
pixel-3 150 225 225

Looking at just red or blue or green in isolation, it's hard to tell which pixel is brightest or darkest in the above table. The average combines and summarizes the three values into one number 0..255. The average shows how bright the pixel is, ignoring hue: 0 = totally dark, 255=totally bright, with intermediate average values corresponding to intermediate brightnesses. More complicated brightness measures are possible, but average is simple and works fine for our purposes.

red green blue average
average = (red + green + blue) / 3
pixel-1 250 25 25 100 (medium bright)
pixel-2 0 75 75 50 (darkest)
pixel-3 150 225 225 200 (brightest)

Code To Compute Pixel Average

  avg = (pixel.getRed() + pixel.getGreen() + pixel.getBlue())/3;

Grayscale Conversion Algorithm

For this example, we'll write code to change the flowers.jpg image to grayscale, using the "average" strategy: for each pixel, compute the average of its red/green/blue values. This average number represents the brightness of the pixel 0..255. Then set the red, green, and blue values of the pixel to be that average number. The result is a grayscale version of the original color image. Once its working with flowers.jpg, try it with poppy.jpg or oranges.jpg. (Solution code available below)


image-gray2

 

Grayscale Followup Questions

Solution code:

  // your code here
  avg = (pixel.getRed() + pixel.getGreen() + pixel.getBlue())/3;
  pixel.setRed(avg);
  pixel.setGreen(avg);
  pixel.setBlue(avg);

  // For blue tint: pixel.setBlue(avg * 1.2);

Grayscale Summary