Automatic freckles detection and retouching

Freckles and blemishes are one of important features of human appearance, which could be used for a variety of potential applications such as face recognition, malignant melanoma early diagnosis and concealing cream simulation. This paper introduces novel approach to skin freckles extraction, based on precise open skin detection using integration of texture, shape and color features. The proposed approach allows detecting and retouching each freckle separately and independently one from another. The process is starting with face location and exact typical facial features extraction such as open skin, eyes and mouth and finishing with freckle masks. Freckles retouching procedure is twofold: firstly the skin inside of freckle mask is replaced with surrounding not freckle skin and then alpha-blending with the original photo is applied in order to simulate the power of concealing cream. Experiments with real human photos show high effectiveness of the proposed technique.