{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,24]],"date-time":"2026-04-24T14:51:37Z","timestamp":1777042297327,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,10,1]],"date-time":"2019-10-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1569888000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100008997","name":"University of Victoria","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["V00901154"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["V00901154"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100008997","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J. Imaging"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Underwater images are often acquired in sub-optimal lighting conditions, in particular at profound depths where the absence of natural light demands the use of artificial lighting. Low-lighting images impose a challenge for both manual and automated analysis, since regions of interest can have low visibility. A new framework capable of significantly enhancing these images is proposed in this article. The framework is based on a novel dehazing mechanism that considers local contrast information in the input images, and offers a solution to three common disadvantages of current single image dehazing methods: oversaturation of radiance, lack of scale-invariance and creation of halos. A novel low-lighting underwater image dataset, OceanDark, is introduced to assist in the development and evaluation of the proposed framework. Experimental results and a comparison with other underwater-specific image enhancement methods show that the proposed framework can be used for significantly improving the visibility in low-lighting underwater images of different scales, without creating undesired dehazing artifacts.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jimaging5100079","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,10,1]],"date-time":"2019-10-01T11:11:16Z","timestamp":1569928276000},"page":"79","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":77,"title":["A Contrast-Guided Approach for the Enhancement of Low-Lighting Underwater Images"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"5","author":[{"given":"Tunai","family":"Porto Marques","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical &amp; Computer Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8P3E6, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Alexandra","family":"Branzan Albu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical &amp; Computer Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8P3E6, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Maia","family":"Hoeberechts","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ocean Networks Canada and Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8N1V8, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,10,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"44","DOI":"10.1016\/j.fishres.2014.01.019","article-title":"Underwater video techniques for observing coastal marine biodiversity: A review of sixty years of publications (1952\u20132012)","volume":"154","author":"Mallet","year":"2014","journal-title":"Fish. 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