Expanding Color Query Results via Image Recoloring

Abstract

An image's color palette can be used to search an image collection to retrieve images that share similar colors to the query palette color. The results of this approach are naturally limited to only those images in the database that share similar colors to the query. The idea proposed in this paper is to expand the search results by finding additional images in the collection that can be computationally recolored to better match the query. This not only provides more results to the user but also helps to extend the usefulness of the image collection. We describe a prototype system to realize this idea, using a two-step procedure. First, images in the database with color palettes similar to the query are identified to produce a set of initial results. Then, additional images that are semantically similar to these initial results are found and are modified using palette-based recoloring such that they better match the color query. We demonstrate results from our prototype and discuss several challenges for developing such image search systems.