SozoTek has developed the world’s leading image enhancement science that creates real world, natural images by stretching the bounds of the source data to extremes. SozoTek scientists carefully developed our image enhancement algorithms to enhance photo content without upsetting the needed artistic image balance of shadows, light, and color. Developed specifically for data-challenged mobile images, SozoTek image enhancement contains multiple patent-pending technologies. Advanced scientific method allows SozoTek to enhance images, even highly damaged and defect-ridden images, and yet never break an image, allowing full implementation in high volume mobile image transport environments.
Dynamic range extension that preserves detail Many image enhancement methods extend shadows, or the dynamic range, in a photo. But most of these algorithms brighten or extend shadow areas without regard to photographic balance and artifact or noise exposure. As a result, these processes generate brighter but flatter images less appealing to the user, oft referred to as “mechanical scenes”. This is due to the indiscriminate use of shadow extension across the entire image.
SozoTek uses a specialized process that extends the photo’s dynamic range to reveal heavily shadowed background areas yet preserves fine detail such as petal edges in a white flower.
Revolutionary color management SozoTek developed the industry’s leading Color Management enhancement technology to help mobile images generated with limited available light, where traditional color processing algorithms fail. SozoTek is thus able to deliver remarkable and consistent image color results, across a high variety of light settings
SozoTek science, multiple patents-pending, uses a sophisticated approach to color management involving corrections at multiple levels. Models are created that assign weights to each pixel, from which an overall color bias as well as unique regional color biases are computed for the entire image. Location area color defects independently adjusted without impact to the rest of the image. White balance is achieved through SozoTek’s advanced adaptive lighting algorithms. The result is a digital image with true, lifelike color: very close to nature and the original scene.
SozoTek color management delivers consistent image color rendition, especially across the wide spectrum of light environments encountered by camera phones due to their small lens and lack of fill flash capabilities. SozoTek technology eliminates cumbersome and poorly used color management menu settings in devices, such as Brightness and White Balance settings, thus improving the user experience as well as final image.
Noise elimination without softening Arguably one of the most difficult problems in mobile imaging is the frequent occurrence of unwanted noise (the appearance of unwanted white or colored spots or flecks in an image). Mobile images often exhibit concurrently low-, mid- and high-frequency noise, in both the luminance and chrominance aspects of the photo.
SozoTek has developed the industry’s leading noise detection and suppression algorithms, uniquely engineered for the challenges of mobile imaging where inadequate light capture increases signal-to-noise problem occurrence. SozoTek’s unique signal-to-noise separation algorithms allow for greater impulse/high-frequency and mid-frequency noise removal without softening detail, thus images are less blurred by the noise suppression process. This is possible through better separation of signal and noise before suppression. SozoTek technology also suppresses noise adaptively within the image to achieve an optimal balance of detail across the picture.
Lifelike clarity Camera phones are forced to capture images using available light due to their lack of flash. These less-than optimal lighting conditions create low contrast images, appearing to the user as soft or out of focus images.
Because camera phones also suffer from excessive electronic noise especially in low light settings, these devices employ heavy noise suppression processing to reduce visible noise. But, as the noise is suppressed, so is detail, so that the resulting image has a soft or blurry quality to it. Traditional image sharpening algorithms cannot be used to lessen this blurred quality, as traditional sharpening processes often expose underlying electronic noise.
SozoTek clarity enhancement algorithms gently balance and improve image contrast, adding visual depth to create striking differences between highlights and shadowed areas of the image. Image sharpening is selective, preventing emphasizing of underlying noise, as well as unattractive sharpening of image aspects that should remain smooth, such as skin texture. As a result, SozoTek image enhancement generates a visibly crisper image without sharpening or exposing negative element edges in the image that traditional image sharpening produce.
