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Effect of image resolution on intensity based

scene illumination classification using neural
network

M. H. Hesamian, S. Mashohor, M. I. Saripan & W. A. Wan Adnan

To cite this article: M. H. Hesamian, S. Mashohor, M. I. Saripan & W. A. Wan Adnan (2015) Effect
of image resolution on intensity based scene illumination classification using neural network, The
Imaging Science Journal, 63:8, 433-439, DOI: 10.1179/1743131X15Y.0000000027

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Published online: 30 Jul 2015.

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RESEARCH PAPER
Effect of image resolution on intensity based
scene illumination classification using neural
network
M. H. Hesamian*, S. Mashohor, M. I. Saripan and W. A. Wan Adnan
In this paper, a framework for testing scene illumination classification with different image
resolutions is proposed. The testing aims to provide the researchers with valuable information
about the effect of image resolution on scene illumination classification using a neural network.
The experiment is done by extracting three types of features from the images. These three types
consist of statistical features, physic based features and histogram based features. It has been
demonstrated that scene illumination classification can be affected by changing the image
resolution. Despite the popular belief that high resolution images lead to better results, scene
illumination classification by the proposed method performed best using low resolution images.
At the second part of discussion, the reason behind this phenomenon is mathematically analysed
and explained.
Keywords: Scene illumination classification, Image resolution, Neural network

Introduction behind this study is to answer the above question in

Recently, the amount of studies on image classification
has increased significantly due to its wide usage in many
different applications, especially scene illumination
classification, which focuses on classifying the properties
of light in the scene to prepare them for further
applications like correction.
Scene illumination classification can be helpful in
object recognition and detection, white balance, color
constancy, color reproduction, illumination correction,
intelligent vehicle and robot navigation.1,2
The huge progress in imaging systems enables users to
capture images with very high resolution, such as 15 to
20 megapixels, even for compact cameras for home
entertainment. Although super high resolution cameras
that are able to take photos with resolutions up to a
couple of gigapixels are on the way to the market,
these high resolution images bring various side effects
for applications that want to use them. For instance,
transferring, storing, retrieving, querying and processing
will be more costly. In addition, many applications are
not able to process high resolution images due to their
limitations. The hypothesis that ‘‘a higher resolution will
to better performance’’ is widespread.
The question of ‘‘Do high resolution images deliver
better performance?’’ is a general question that can be
modified to any image processing system or method and
has been previously explored by various studies to
answer the aforementioned concern. The motivation
Department of Computer and Communication Systems, Faculty of
Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
*Corresponding author, email mh.hesamian@gmail.com
scene illumination classification field and to propose the
optimum resolution. Finding this optimised resolution
has some major achievements. First, delivering better
performance and accuracy. Second, reduce the proces-
sing load by avoiding processing the unnecessary high
resolution images and subsequently decrease the
response time of the system.
The relationship of image resolution and performance
of face recognition has been the subject of many
studies.3–5 In summary, the findings of such research
demonstrate that the performance of the face recog-
nition system will remain constant by reducing the image
resolution; however, this trend will only continue up to a
certain threshold by decreasing the resolution, after
which the performance will deteriorate.6 In Ref. 3, the
authors investigated the effect of image resolution on the
performance of a face recognition system. This exper-
iment is done in three parts: face detection, face regis-
tration and normalisation and face recognition. The
experiment is repeated for the same images but various
resolution starting from 128|128 to 8|8 and each
time tested on separate face components. Their results
proved that the face recognition system is not very
sensitive to image resolution, and moreover, good
accuracy can still be obtained by reducing the image
resolution to 32|32 pixels. In a separate study,7 the
authors try to know ‘‘Are high resolution images are
more effective in face recognition results?’’ The results
achieved by this study also demonstrate that relatively
low resolution images perform better than high resol-
ution representation. In this study, a neural network is
applied to accomplish the recognition with the basic
assumption of ‘‘high resolution images the amounts of
noise contaminated pixels are higher.’’

Ñ W.S. Maney & Son Ltd / Society 2015

MORE OpenChoice articles are open access and distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License 3.0
Received 21 November 2014; accepted 12 July 2015
DOI 10.1179/1743131X15Y.0000000027 The Imaging Science Journal 2015 VOL 63 NO 8 433
Hesamian et al. Effect of image resolution on intensity based scene illumination classification using neural network

Nevertheless, low resolution images have been

acknowledged to be suitable for certain applications.
However, decreasing the image resolution increases the
effect of noise, which means these tiny images are not
appropriate for some general purposes.8 The experiment
done in Ref. 8 shows that full resolution images deliv-
ered better accuracy compared to resized images in
terms of non-parametric object recognition. This can be
related to the types of feature applied in the experiment.
In the multimedia field, this issue has been addressed
by various studies that focused on object or movement
recognition. For example, in order to boost the accuracy
of detecting a full 3D body scan, the approach of using
high resolution images was proposed.9 However, this
approach was later implemented by combining several
low resolution images from multiple views.10 Such a
method not only benefits from low resolution images but
also obtained more accurate representation compared to
its predecessors.
In medical imaging, one study focused on surveying
the effect of the image resolution on the accuracy of its
system. The final presented results showed that a higher
image resolution leads to better accuracy, albeit there is
some limitation in increasing the image resolution due to
the increased amount of noise.11

Methodology
The methodology that is used for this study is a neural
network based classification consisting of seven main
steps. The steps are shown in Fig. 1.
A database of 338 scene images was applied in this
study with resolution of 4368|2096. Then, the images
are presented with six different image resolutions:
2048|2048, 1024|1024, 512|512, 256|256,
128|128 and 64|64. For each image set with specific
resolution, the corresponding feature set has been
extracted. The process of resizing the images is done by
using the following two steps: first dividing the image to
equal size windows and then merging the pixel values of
each window into one single pixel. The intensity of such
pixel is the average intensity of all exciting pixels in the
window7 (Fig. 1, image resizing).
All original images are accompanied by the
surrounding illumination value (SIV).12 The SIV as a
physics based feature presents the amount of light at the
moment of capturing the photo (Fig. 1, feature extrac-
tion). Using SIV can help bridge the gap between the
image presented data and the real data from the scene
(Fig. 2).
The second class of input feature was a subset of
statistical scene illumination classification approa-
ches.13,14 The statistical feature set consists of mean,
mode and median of the image illumination, which were
all extracted from the Y component of the image and
transferred from the RGB color model to CIE XYZ.
The range of varying illumination (0 to 117000 lux)
in the real scene was mapped from 0 to 255 in the
image illumination component (Y). Therefore, a direct
relationship between the real scene illumination and the
image illumination could be deduced. The mean of
illumination depicts the average illumination of the
image pixels, which is equivalent to SIV and represents
the illumination of the real scene. The mode of illumi-
nation can help in determining the most frequent
1 Step by step flow chart of implemented system
illumination value that could be helpful in finding light
spots. The median of image illumination represents the
varying range of illumination in the image.
The third type of input feature for this classification
system was the histogram quartering feature. This fea-
ture helps to increase the performance of classification
by better histogram comparison. The illumination
histogram of the image was divided into four quarters
and then compared to the corresponding quarter of the
most ideal image illumination histogram (Fig. 3). The
differences are presented in four values for the four
histogram quarters.
The proposed classifier for this study is a feed forward
pattern recognition network with three hidden layers
(Fig. 1, neural network classification). The number of
neurons in the layers are 5, 10 and 5 for the first, second
and third layers respectively. All the aforementioned
extracted features are the inputs of this network. Using a
target matrix that indicates the belonging group of the
training samples enables the network to sort out the test
samples into predefined clusters (Fig. 4). Levenberg–
Marquardt is used as a training algorithm for this
network, which is highly recommended as a first choice
supervised algorithm for those problems that have up to
a few hundreds of weight.15

434 The Imaging Science Journal 2015 VOL 63 NO 8

 Hesamian et al. Effect of image resolution on intensity based scene illumination classification using neural network

2 Sample of input images with their corresponding SIV value

3 Sample of image histograms (2566256) with their corresponding quarter’s value. Vertical lines separating quarters from
each other and horizontal line refer to ideal histogram level. Horizontal axis represents CIE XYZ y component value; vertical
axis represents number of pixels in each Y component value

Starting from the highest image resolution set
(2048|2048), the corresponding feature set was the
input of the neural network. In addition, a target matrix
carrying the belonging group of each image was also fed
into the neural network for the training phase. Then,
the process of classification was repeated 30 times to
guarantee the accuracy of the system.
The training algorithm performance was monitored
by mean square error (MSE) (Fig. 1, result evaluation);
this parameter was used as one of the evaluating and
comparing parameters of the system.16,17 In order to
have a very clear understandable estimate of the system
performance, the error percentage was proposed. The
classification error or simply the misclassification rate is
the ultimate measure of the performance of a classifier.
The capability of defining a target value based on
reducing the misclassification rate is another motivating
point for using it.18 Since any estimation may follow a
prediction, providing an accurate measure for system
prediction, efficiency is necessary. Using the coefficient
of determination (R square) as the measure of system
accuracy in order to compare the estimated value and
the proposed model is a common solution for evaluating
the system efficiency in this aspect.19
Finally, for each image resolution set, the classifi-
cation process was done, and the results recorded in
terms of accuracy rate, MSE and R square value (Fig. 1,
iteration and result finalising). All the recorded values
are the average of 30 times repeat of the test. The 30
times repeat will minimise the inherent randomness
behavior in the training procedure of the neural
network.18 Repeating the test for 30 times will ensure the
results are following a normal distribution pattern and
not a random one.

The Imaging Science Journal 2015 VOL 63 NO 8 435

Hesamian et al. Effect of image resolution on intensity based scene illumination classification using neural network

4 Designed neural network structure: eight inputs correspond to eight features (mean, mode, median, SIV and Q1 to Q4), and
three outputs correspond to three output clusters (low, ideal and high illumination)

Results and discussion
The results presented in Fig. 5 depict that the misclassi-
fication rate of the system varies by changing the image
resolution. A reduction of 4.62% occurs between the
lowest and highest misclassification rate, travelling
from the lowest image resolution to the highest image
resolution. This simply demonstrates the effect of image
resolution on misclassification rate. The system mis-
classification rate has a downward trend by decreasing
the image resolution from 2048|2048 to 128|128. This
trend dramatically increases from 512|512 to
128|128. Then, after that, by reducing the image
resolution, the upward trend starts. As an example on
how to use the table in Fig. 5, let us assume that there is an
image with resolution of 1024|1024; then, by referring
to the table, we can see that if the resolution decreased to
512|512 the misclassification rate will improve by
0.57%, if reduced to the misclassification rate will
improve by 29.47% and finally reducing the image
resolution to 128| 128 will improve the rate by 31.99%.
The same scenario happens in the MSE chart.
Figure 6 clearly depicts the effect of image resolution on
MSE. The general trend of the MSE chart is the same as
the misclassification rate, and an improvement of
37.23% is achieved from the worst to the best case. In the
MSE chart, the differences are clearer, for instance, from
256 to 128, a reduction of 1.14% occurs, whereas in the
MSE, a reduction of 19.34% occurs. However, although
the 1.14% is not very remarkable for some applications,
the 19.34% reduction in MSE for same cases demon-
strates the significant improvement delivered by
reducing the image resolution from 256 to 128.
R square as a measure for goodness of fit of the mod-
eling can represent the performance of the system for
predicting based on current modeling.19,20 As can be seen
in Fig. 7, the predicting power of a scene illumination
classification system is also affected by changing the
image resolution. A slight continuous improvement is
achieved by discounting the image resolution from 2048
to128. However, similar to the other two parameters,
the trend starts to decline by reducing the image size to
64. A growth of 10.31% occurred in the R square value
from the worst case up to the optimal point (128|128).
The previous discussions clearly prove that decreasing
the resolution up to a certain threshold will increase the
performance, whereas the performance will deteriorate
when the threshold is crossed. The tables in Figs. 5, 6
and 7 help to show how much improvement will be
achieved in percentage by reducing the higher image
resolution. To study and determine what is the reason
for such behavior, we need to go back to feature sets and

5 Misclassification rate analysis. On left, chart shows misclassification rate changes by changing image resolution. On right,
separated improvement of each image resolution is compared to others by percentages. Negative values in table show that
instead of reduction increase occurred

436 The Imaging Science Journal 2015 VOL 63 NO 8

 Hesamian et al. Effect of image resolution on intensity based scene illumination classification using neural network

6 Mean square error analysis. On left, chart shows MSE changes by changing image resolution. On right, separated
improvement of each image resolution is compared to others by percentages in terms of MSE

7 R square analysis. On left, chart shows R square changes by changing image resolution. On right, separated improvement
of each image resolution is compared to others by percentages in terms of R square

their corresponding values for each image resolution
test. Table 1 shows the feature values for all image
resolutions. For a more detailed analysis, the table
presents the values for three samples, each belonging to
a different illumination class.
As can be seen in Table 1, the average illumination
value remains constant by changing the image
resolution. Since the resizing process is done by dividing
pixels in windows and averaging them, there would be
no difference in the average values in various image sizes.
Hence, the average illumination value does not involve
performance improvement. In the case of the median
illumination value, the changes occurred in the vicinity
of a certain value with very little variation. Therefore,
even though the small contribution of median value in
the improvement of system performance is negligible, the
values for mode feature are highly affected by changing
the image resolution, especially in the ideal illumination
samples. For the other two groups based on the
exaggerated property of light intensity, the changes in
mode value are not as much as for the ideal class.
In order to analyse the effect of the image resolution
changes on histogram quartering features, we need to
apply the coefficient of variation (CV), which shows a
normalised measure for the distribution of pixel values
over four quarters. This statistic enables the changes in
the quarter value of the illumination histogram to be
clearly monitored by image resolution. Figure 8 depicts
the effect of the image resolution changes on the CV of
the histogram quarter features.

Table 1 Feature values for three different images from various illumination classes presented by various image resolutions

Sample Resolution Avg Mode Median Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 CV

Low 64 54 22 53 2727 1208 132 29 1.0608

128 54 23 52 10986 4637 601 160 1.0605
256 54 21 51 43,858 18,334 2,503 831 1.054
512 54 23 50 174,465 74,096 9,506 4,077 1.047
1024 54 23 50 694,001 299,930 36,403 18,242 1.041
2048 54 15 49 2,768,017 1,206,272 141,736 78,279 1.038
Ideal 64 109 34 104 1021 1460 1381 234 0.473
128 109 47 103 5633 5314 1197 2660 0.427
256 109 157 101 17,489 22,080 20,464 5503 0.397
512 109 160 100 71,570 86,389 80,112 23,893 0.375
1024 109 86 100 292,092 341,148 315,081 100,255 0.362
2048 109 163 99 1,178,477 1,356,504 124,932 409891 0.356
High 64 158 248 167 640 466 1561 1429 0.1587
128 159 248 170 2707 1691 5844 57600 0.1472
256 159 238 171 11156 6308 24022 24050 0.1447
512 159 255 173 46043 24512 93283 98306 0.1410
1024 159 255 175 188512 100383 353208 406473 0.1393
2048 159 255 175 188512 100383 353208 406473 0.1399

The Imaging Science Journal 2015 VOL 63 NO 8 437

Hesamian et al. Effect of image resolution on intensity based scene illumination classification using neural network
8 Coefficient of variation of histogram quarter features separated by image illumination class: (A) low illumination class,
(B) ideal illumination class and (C) high illumination class
The CV for the quarters declines by increasing the image
resolution. This means that the differences in quarter
values are decreasing by increasing the image resolution,
and the values are going to be same. This phenomenon
results in reducing the discriminating power of the histo-
gram quartering features by the neural network. Therefore,
having quarter values with a higher CV (much more
differences in distribution) is the main reason for having
better performance for the lower resolutions.
By looking at Fig. 8 again, it can be seen that the CV for
the high and low illumination samples is more affected by
the image resolution than the ideal illumination. This is
related to the natural histogram shape of the illumination
value in each cluster. The ideal illumination histogram has
closer values in each quarter, and by changing the image
resolution, it has been less affected. However, the high and
low illumination histograms have huge differences in the
quarters, and by changing image size, they have been
more influenced. Hence, the CV value in the high and low
illumination samples decreased the misclassification and
the error dramatically and much more than for the ideal
illumination. In general, it can be concluded that changing
the image resolution has much more effect on the classifi-
cation of high and low illumination samples than the
samples with ideal illumination.
Conclusion
The effect of image resolution on the illumination
classification was investigated. The experiment shows
438 The Imaging Science Journal 2015 VOL 63 NO 8
that the performance was improved by reducing the
image resolution, but this improvement only continued
up to a threshold. The best performance was delivered
by the image set with a resolution of 128|128 by
improvement of 4.62% in misclassification rate, 31.17%
in MSE and 8.69% in R square. As the performance
started to deteriorate by reducing the image resolution
to values of less than 128|128, this resolution setting
could be set as the threshold for image illumination
classification and estimation.
The changes in CV for the quarter values of the illu-
mination histogram are acknowledged to be the main
reason for performance changes. Increasing the image
resolution will lead to a decrease in the CV of the
histogram quarter values. Once the CV in histogram
quarter values decrease, these values get more similar,
and it will lead to reduction in discrimination power of
NN. Finally, it will result in more misclassification, more
error and lower R square value. This phenomenon
affects the high and low illumination cluster more than
the ideal illumination class due to the larger changes in
CV in the corresponding group.
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