Estimation of Skin Color Range Using Achromatic Features

Robust detection of skin color is a difficult task since color information changes under different lighting conditions. Previous research indicated that human skin color is restricted to a small range of values in certain color coordinate systems. However, the ranges tend to shift with varying illumination according to our experiments. It is therefore unattainable to derive a universal standard for skin color detection and segmentation for general scenes. To address this issue, we propose to use achromatic features to identify the proper ranges of skin color in an image. Specifically, we utilize the result of face detection, which is independent of chromatic properties, to guide the process of skin color range selection. Experimental results have validated the efficiency of the proposed methodology for vision-based human-computer interface (HCI) such as hand and finger detection.