Color Transfer for Images: A Survey

Abstract

High-quality image generation is an important topic in digital visualization. As a sub-topic of the research, color transfer is to produce high-quality image with ideal color scheme learned from the reference one. In this paper, we investigate the mainstream methods of color transfer to provide a survey which introduces the related theories and frameworks. Such methods can be concluded into three categories: statistical color transfer; semantic-based color transfer; color transfer for special target. For these mainstream technical routes, we discuss the related research background, technical details, and representative methods. We also exhibit some new trends of the topic according to the recent progress. Based on the comparisons, we discuss the unsolved issues of color transfer and potential solutions in future work.