Bi-affinity Filter: A Bilateral Type Filter for Color Images

We propose a new filter called Bi-affinity filter for color images. This filter is similar in structure to the bilateral filter. The proposed filter is based on the color line model, which does not require the explicit conversion of the RGB values to perception based spaces such as CIELAB. The bi-affinity filter measures the affinity of a pixel to a small neighborhood around it and weighs the filter term accordingly. We show that this method can perform at par with standard bilateral filters for color images. The small edges of the image are usually enhanced leading to a very easy image enhancement filter.