Detect color and remove that color from image

Question

I have image with kind of light purple image in background and character in dark blue. My goal is to identify text from the image. So I\'m trying to remove light purple colo

Answer 1

Since there seems to be a distinguishable shade from the text and the background, color thresholding should work here. The idea is to convert the image to HSV format then use a lower and upper threshold to generate a binary segmented mask then bitwise-and to extract the text. Here's an implementation using Python OpenCV

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Using this lower and upper threshold, we obtain this mask

lower = np.array([0, 120, 0])
upper = np.array([179, 255, 255])

Then we bitwise-and with the original image

Finally we threshold to get a binary image with the foreground text in black and the background in white

import numpy as np
import cv2

# Color threshold
image = cv2.imread('1.png')
original = image.copy()
hsv = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2HSV)
lower = np.array([0, 120, 0])
upper = np.array([179, 255, 255])
mask = cv2.inRange(hsv, lower, upper)
result = cv2.bitwise_and(original,original,mask=mask)
result[mask==0] = (255,255,255)

# Make text black and foreground white
result = cv2.cvtColor(result, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
result = cv2.threshold(result, 0, 255, cv2.THRESH_OTSU + cv2.THRESH_BINARY)[1]

cv2.imshow('mask', mask)
cv2.imshow('result', result)
cv2.waitKey()

You can use this HSV color threshold script to determine the lower and upper thresholds

import cv2
import sys
import numpy as np

def nothing(x):
    pass

# Load in image
image = cv2.imread('1.png')

# Create a window
cv2.namedWindow('image')

# create trackbars for color change
cv2.createTrackbar('HMin','image',0,179,nothing) # Hue is from 0-179 for Opencv
cv2.createTrackbar('SMin','image',0,255,nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('VMin','image',0,255,nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('HMax','image',0,179,nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('SMax','image',0,255,nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('VMax','image',0,255,nothing)

# Set default value for MAX HSV trackbars.
cv2.setTrackbarPos('HMax', 'image', 179)
cv2.setTrackbarPos('SMax', 'image', 255)
cv2.setTrackbarPos('VMax', 'image', 255)

# Initialize to check if HSV min/max value changes
hMin = sMin = vMin = hMax = sMax = vMax = 0
phMin = psMin = pvMin = phMax = psMax = pvMax = 0

output = image
wait_time = 33

while(1):

    # get current positions of all trackbars
    hMin = cv2.getTrackbarPos('HMin','image')
    sMin = cv2.getTrackbarPos('SMin','image')
    vMin = cv2.getTrackbarPos('VMin','image')

    hMax = cv2.getTrackbarPos('HMax','image')
    sMax = cv2.getTrackbarPos('SMax','image')
    vMax = cv2.getTrackbarPos('VMax','image')

    # Set minimum and max HSV values to display
    lower = np.array([hMin, sMin, vMin])
    upper = np.array([hMax, sMax, vMax])

    # Create HSV Image and threshold into a range.
    hsv = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2HSV)
    mask = cv2.inRange(hsv, lower, upper)
    output = cv2.bitwise_and(image,image, mask= mask)

    # Print if there is a change in HSV value
    if( (phMin != hMin) | (psMin != sMin) | (pvMin != vMin) | (phMax != hMax) | (psMax != sMax) | (pvMax != vMax) ):
        print("(hMin = %d , sMin = %d, vMin = %d), (hMax = %d , sMax = %d, vMax = %d)" % (hMin , sMin , vMin, hMax, sMax , vMax))
        phMin = hMin
        psMin = sMin
        pvMin = vMin
        phMax = hMax
        psMax = sMax
        pvMax = vMax

    # Display output image
    cv2.imshow('image',output)

    # Wait longer to prevent freeze for videos.
    if cv2.waitKey(wait_time) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
        break

cv2.destroyAllWindows()