{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T17:39:40Z","timestamp":1792431580285,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1792368000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1792368000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"name":"Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) through the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnol\u00f3gico y la Innovaci\u00f3n","award":["IDI-20240216"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["IDI-20240216"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J Digit Imaging. Inform. med."],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    Current light-based devices, such as laser hair removal, intense pulsed light (IPL), vascular laser therapy, and dermatologic phototherapy, are widely used in clinical dermatology but rely heavily on subjective manual parameterization or uncalibrated point-based colorimeters. To overcome these limitations, this work presents a unified system for hair segmentation and skin characterization in macroscopic dermatological images. Unlike most existing literature that relies on dermoscopic datasets captured under highly controlled conditions, our approach is specifically designed for macroscopic images that replicate real clinical laser treatments. The proposed pipeline integrates a custom-trained variant of the YOLOv9 deep learning architecture for instance segmentation and classical image processing within a single workflow to extract objective skin and hair parameters such as phototype, hair density, color, and thickness. A color calibration stage using spectrophotometric measurements ensures accurate feature estimation regardless of illumination conditions. Experimental results show competitive segmentation metrics (mAP@50\n                    <jats:inline-formula>\n                      <jats:alternatives>\n                        <jats:tex-math>$$\\approx $$<\/jats:tex-math>\n                        <mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\">\n                          <mml:mo>\u2248<\/mml:mo>\n                        <\/mml:math>\n                      <\/jats:alternatives>\n                    <\/jats:inline-formula>\n                    0.80) on a custom dataset featuring short, shaved hairs, typical of pre-treatment scenarios. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed pipeline in providing the objective, foundational skin and hair features required for future automated laser parameterization, paving the way for its extension to broader light-based medical therapies.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s10278-026-02263-w","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T16:47:04Z","timestamp":1792428424000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Hair Segmentation and Skin Characterization on Macroscopic Dermatological Images for Laser Treatment Parameterization"],"prefix":"10.1007","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0003-1387-7485","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alex Navarro","family":"Navarro","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Marc Arriaga","family":"Hidalgo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Carlos Moreno","family":"Rubio","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Maxime","family":"Talarmain","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2543-3550","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Noelia Vaquero","family":"Gallardo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"2263_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Za\u0142\u0119ska I, Atta-Motte M. Aspects of Diode Laser (805 nm) Hair Removal Safety in a Mixed-Race Group of Patients. J Lasers Med Sci. 2019 Feb;10(2):146\u2013152. Available from: https:\/\/journals.sbmu.ac.ir\/jlms\/article\/view\/22465.","DOI":"10.15171\/jlms.2019.23"},{"key":"2263_CR2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gon\u00e7alves S. Properties and parameters for effective laser hair removal: A review. Our Dermatol Online. 2021 Oct;12(4):452\u2013457. Available from: http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.7241\/ourd.20214.25.","DOI":"10.7241\/ourd.20214.25"},{"issue":"2","key":"2263_CR3","first-page":"081","volume":"7","author":"K Alhallak","year":"2021","unstructured":"Alhallak K, Omran D, Tomi S, Abdulhafid A. Skin, Light and their Interactions, an In-Depth Review for Modern Light-Based Skin Therapies. Journal of Clinical Dermatology and Therapy. 2021;7(2):081.","journal-title":"Journal of Clinical Dermatology and Therapy."},{"key":"2263_CR4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lee T, Ng V, Gallagher R, Coldman A, McLean D. Dullrazor\u2122: A software approach to hair removal from images. Comput Biol Med. 1997;27(6):533\u2013543. Available from: https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0010482597000206.","DOI":"10.1016\/S0010-4825(97)00020-6"},{"key":"2263_CR5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Huang A, Kwan SY, Chang WY, Liu MY, Chi MH, Chen GS. A robust hair segmentation and removal approach for clinical images of skin lesions. In: 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC); 2013. p. 3315\u20133318.","DOI":"10.1109\/EMBC.2013.6610250"},{"key":"2263_CR6","first-page":"23","volume":"4","author":"G Yue","year":"2021","unstructured":"Yue G, Ji C, Yang Y. 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Available from: https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/1405.0312."}],"container-title":["Journal of Imaging Informatics in Medicine"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s10278-026-02263-w.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10278-026-02263-w","content-type":"text\/html","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s10278-026-02263-w.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T16:47:06Z","timestamp":1792428426000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10278-026-02263-w"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]]},"references-count":24,"alternative-id":["2263"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10278-026-02263-w","relation":{},"ISSN":["2948-2933"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2948-2933","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]]},"assertion":[{"value":"4 May 2026","order":1,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"24 August 2026","order":2,"name":"revised","label":"Revised","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"25 August 2026","order":3,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"19 October 2026","order":4,"name":"first_online","label":"First Online","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study involved only the non-invasive acquisition of non-identifiable photographs of hair from adult volunteer participants for the development and evaluation of computer vision models aimed at optimizing laser hair removal parameters. No clinical procedures, medical interventions, or collection of personally identifiable information were performed. Formal ethics review and approval by an independent ethics review committee or equivalent body was not required for this study; therefore, no ethics approval number was applicable.","order":1,"name":"Ethics","label":"Ethics Approval","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to image acquisition and use of the photographs for research purposes, in accordance with applicable data protection requirements, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016\/679 and Spanish Organic Law 3\/2018. The consent form informed participants about the purpose and procedures of the study, the use and protection of their images, their right to withdraw consent, and the applicable data protection measures. All images were fully anonymized prior to analysis and were intended exclusively for research purposes.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","label":"Consent to Participate","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to the Journal of Imaging Informatics in Medicine. Furthermore, the authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for publication of the macroscopic images included in the manuscript.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","label":"Consent for Publication","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"The authors declare no competing interests.","order":4,"name":"Ethics","label":"Competing Interests","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}}]}}