Removal of water scattering

Abstract

In this paper, an efficient and effective method is proposed using dark channel prior to restore the original clarity of the images underwater. Images taken in the underwater environment are subject to water attenuation and particles in water's scattering, a phenomenon similar to the effect of heavy fog in the air. Using dark channel prior, the depth of the turbid water can be estimated by the assumption that most local patches in water-free images contain some pixels which have very low intensities in at least one color channel. In this way, the effect of turbid water can be removed and the original clarity of images can be unveiled. The results processed by this method are presented in the paper.