Camera Color Correction for Cultural Heritage Preservation Based on Clustered Data

Abstract

Cultural heritage preservation is a crucial topic for our society. When dealing with fine art, color is a primary feature that encompasses much information related to the artwork’s conservation status and to the pigments’ composition. As an alternative to more sophisticated devices, the analysis and identification of color pigments may be addressed via a digital camera, i.e., a non-invasive, inexpensive, and portable tool for studying large surfaces. In the present study, we propose a new supervised approach to camera characterization based on clustered data in order to address the homoscedasticity of the acquired data. The experimental phase is conducted on a real pictorial dataset, where pigments are grouped according to their chromatic or chemical properties. The results show that such a procedure leads to better characterization with respect to state-of-the-art methods. In addition, the present study introduces a method to deal with organic pigments in a quantitative visual approach.