Reflectance estimation and white balancing using multiple images

We propose a novel method for reflectance estimation by using a flash/no-flash image pair. In our method, by using multiple images of the same scene taken under different lighting conditions, we estimate a reflectance component which does not depend on scene illumination, and a shading component caused by illumination lights. Moreover, we apply it to white balance correction by appropriately correcting the estimated shading components. The proposed method achieve better performance than conventional methods especially under colored illumination and mixture lighting conditions.