Journal of Signal and Information Processing, 2013, 4, 400-406
Published Online November 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jsip)
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jsip.2013.44051
Open Access JSIP
Preprocessing of Separating Leukocytes Based on Setting
Parameters of Lightness Transformation*
Jianyong Cai1,2,3, Lili Luo1, Rongtai Cai1,3, Lijin Lin1, Juan Cai1
1College of Photonic and Electronic Engineering, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China; 2Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic
Science and Technology for Medicine Ministry of Education, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China; 3Intelligent Optoelectronic
Systems Research Centre, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China.
Email: cjy@fjnu.edu.cn
Received September 11th, 2013; revised October 8th, 2013; accepted October 15th, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Jianyong Cai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
ABSTRACT
This paper proposed a new algorithm to separate leukocytes from cytological image by setting parameters of lightness
transformation based on the RGB color space, which can make the targets’ color in different areas. In our procedure, an
operator is employed in using color features. According to their histogram distribution of hue component in HSL color
space after enhancing the contrast of image in RGB color space, the threshold of segmentation between leukocyte and
erythrocyte could be achieved well. Especially, this algorithm is more efficient than monochrome for leukocyte seg-
mentation, and the results of experiments show that it provides a good tool for cytological image, which can increase
accuracy of segmentation of leukocyte.
Keywords: Parameters; Lightness Transformation; Color Features; HSL; Threshold; Leukocyte Segmentation
1. Introduction
The detection of leukocytes is an important part of the
test about blood, which has a great value to the diagnosis
of various blood diseases. The traditional detection method
about leukocytes, which usually requires human partici-
pation, will definitely cause personal error, so the auto-
matical identification research of cytological image is of
great significance.
There have been considerable related researches in this
area of image segmentation with many algorithms pre-
sented [1-5], such as the gray threshold method, the ac-
tive contour models and some algorithms. The gray thresh-
old method only considers the gray information and ig-
nores the spatial information of image. The active con-
tour model represents an object boundary or some other
salient images feature as a parametric curve [6]. Some
algorithms apply watershed algorithms to the segmenta-
tion [7] and other algorithms use morphology and texture
toward leukocyte recognition [8,9]. As the research fur-
ther develops, color image segmentation attracts more
and more attention. Some color and mathematical mor-
phology methods are applied in segmentation of cyto-
logical images [10,11]. Some algorithms are based on the
saturation and green components’ distribution [12]. Ber-
gen posts a simultaneous and cooperative way combining
pixel-wise classification with template matching to locate
leukocyte [13].
In those segmentation works, the authors have em-
ployed preprocessing methods to the image before using
the algorithms mentioned above. In a typical preprocess-
ing method, some gray values as a threshold are selected
to separate leukocytes from background of a cytological
image. The gray threshold preprocessing method can
achieve indeed a good result in a single leukocyte. How-
ever, as an example shown in Figure 1, it indicates that
gray threshold method is not good for an image with
multiple leukocytes. Some methods used green channel
image instead of gray image. The results can be improv-
ed, but it is still difficult to separate leukocytes in some
images. For instance, a leukocyte cell marked by a circle
in Figures 1(a)-(c) is composed of nucleus and cytoplasm.
After separating leukocytes from the background by set-
ting the gray threshold value of 145, the cytoplasm in-
formation is lost as shown in Figure 1(d).
*This work was fully supported by the Major Projects of Science and
Technology for Industry-Academia Cooperation in Fujian Province
(2011H6010) and partly supported by the Natural Science Foundation
of China (61179011).
Preprocessing of Separating Leukocytes Based on Setting Parameters of Lightness Transformation 401
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 1. Loss of cytoplasm image by gray threshold: (a)
True color image; (b) Gray image; (c) G channel image; (d)
Gray level filter image.
Obviously, it is simple to use the gray image to iden-
tify leukocyte, however, its accuracy is low because the
information that gray image stores is less than that of a
true color image.
So far, for many segmentation methods proposed, we
also need to use the characteristics of image itself to find
out suitable segmentation algorithm. An algorithm for
leukocyte segmentation is put forward in this paper, which
can put the hue between erythrocyte and leukocyte into
different areas after lightness transformation of the com-
ponents of RGB, and the hue threshold of separating leu-
kocyte can be easily obtained.
2. Principle and Methods
Generally, the cytological images are usually made of
erythrocyte, leukocyte and background stored in RGB
format, what is widely used in color image processing,
but it is not quite suited to describe perceptual colors.
And the best description with color of cytological images
is hue in HSL color space. It is more accurate than RGB
color space to describe the perceptual color relationships
[14,15].
HSL color space presents a set of helpful features ap-
parently, but when the cytological image is transferred
from RGB to HSL directly, it is still very hard to separate
leukocytes from an image with erythrocytes and back-
ground. As shown in the Figure 2, the distribution of
histogram of hue component does not show a clear clue
how to identify leukocyte, erythrocyte and the back-
ground, which has a lot of overlap between erythrocyte
and leukocyte.
Therefore, a novel preprocessing method for the seg-
mentation of leukocyte image is presented by utilizing
(a)
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
30 60 90 120150180210240270300330 360
(b)
00.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0
500
1000
1500
2000
(c)
Figure 2. H, L histogram of a primal image: (a) Primal im-
age; (b) Hue component; (c) Lightness component.
lightness transformation of the RGB components. As-
suming that the gray value range of a primary image
,
f
xy is [s1, s2] and the gray value range of a proc-
essed image
,
f
xy
is [t1, t2]. The function between f
(x, y) and
,
f
xy
shown in Figure 3 can be expressed
by (1).
 
12
1
12
,,
tt
1
f
xyf xyst
ss

(1)
Firstly, we normalize RGB color space to interval
[0,1], the procedure of normalization can be formulated
by 0
VL, where 0 is the original gray value of RGB
color space and L is total classes of gray value. Then we
adjust intensity of R, G and B channel respectively to
increase the contrast of color feature of hue component
by (1). This procedure of preprocessing is named as
CCIN (Color Channel Intensity Normalization) method.
An operator T was employed in our procedure of in-
creasing contrast in RGB vector color space:
V
Open Access JSIP
Preprocessing of Separating Leukocytes Based on Setting Parameters of Lightness Transformation
402
t1
s1s2
0
f
(
x
,
y
)
f (x, y)
t2
Figure 3. The relationship between original and processed
images in the linear transformation.




3
1
,,
rgbi ii
i
f
fxy ffxyr

,

3
,,0
rgb
fxy ,1,




1
21
1
,,
i
ii
ii i
f
fxyfxy s
ss

(2)
Where . Let
1, 2,3i

,
rgb
f
xy be a vector func-
tion in RGB color vector space, it shows the values of
red, green and blue at the corresponding point
,
x
y of
the image, and

,
1
f
xy ,
2,
f
xy , 3
,
f
xy are the
values of red, green, blue channel respectively. The vec-
tors r1, r2, r3 are unit vectors of components of RGB.
Then assuming that the gray value range of a primary
cytological image is [n, m], the pixels’ grey values of
components of RGB are arranged respectively from small
to large to get 1 × P vector Vi. The parameters i
, i
can be defined by
 
1,,1, P
ii ii
VNum VNum


(3)
where P is the number of the total pixels of image, and
Num is the number of 1% of P. As above shown, the op-
erator T maps RGB color vector space into itself:
 


3
,,,
rgbrgb rgb
fxyTfxyfxy

, (4)
Secondly we transfer the vector function
,
rgb
f
xy
to HSL color space, which is from Equation (4).
As shown in the Figure 4, observing the H and L his-
tograms of
,
rgb
f
xy
in HSL color space, it’s so easy
to figure out the areas of erythrocyte and leukocyte that
can be wonderfully segmented by threshold value of the
H component. And by comparing the histograms of hue
with lightness, we could confirm that those discretely
distributing bars are the points whose lightness value L
0.9. Apparently, the points show the characterization of
the background pixels.
Figure 4(b) shows two areas: erythrocyte area with H
between 0 and 150, and leukocyte area with H between
180 and 360. Indeed we can set a hue threshold (from
150 to 180) to separate leukocyte and erythrocyte in an
(a)
0
500
1000
1500
2000
306090120 150180 210240 270300 330 360
(b)
00.2 0.40.6 0.81
0
500
1000
1500
(c)
Figure 4. H, L histogram of a normalized image: (a) Nor-
malized image; (b) Hue component after discarding the
background pixels; (c) Lightness component.
image processed by CCIN method, choosing the binary
leukocyte image as a mask, actually it could be called as
Hue threshold. It means that we combine the true color
image with the mask based on the OR operator. Finally,
the leukocytes could totally be separated from the primal
image.
However the CCIN is not effective for all cytological
images with different features. As shown in Figure 5(a),
It is a cytological image that contains leukocytes with
less pixels, and Figure 5(b) is shown a linear map of
grey value of R, G and B each channels between the
original image and the normalized image, which the slopes
of components of RGB are decided by parameters i
,
i
. Through the linear transformation of R, G and B
each components, the grey value of primal image can be
mapped to the normalized image. Then there is a nor-
malized image after the linear transformation in Figure
5(c).
The hue histogram of the normalized image after dis-
carding background pixels is shown in Figure 6. The
hues about leukocytes’ and erythrocytes’ have more over-
lap, and the distribution of hue of erythrocytes is disperse
Open Access JSIP
Preprocessing of Separating Leukocytes Based on Setting Parameters of Lightness Transformation 403
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 5. Contrast between a primal image and the image
by CCIN: (a) A primal image; (b) A linear map; (c) The
image by CCIN.
0
500
1000
306090120 150180 210 240 270 300330360
Figure 6. Hue histogram without points whose L 0.9.
badly. So no matter how to choose threshold, the leuko-
cytes of blood cytological image can be not better seg-
mented.
Why can not this kind of cytological images obtain a
good result of hue after using the CCIN directly? By ob-
serving the histograms of components of RGB of primal
image are shown in Figure 7(a), it shows two peaks in
the histograms of components of R and B, the histogram
of G channel presents three peaks; And Figure 7(b) is
shown the histograms of components of RGB of normal-
ized image, the histograms of components of R and B
still have two peaks, but the histogram of G channel ap-
pears two peaks, which is not same the primal image’s.
Because of the parameters i
, i
gained by CCIN, the
grey value of 1% from low to high of the total pixels of
G channel will be used as the minimum of tensile range.
However the number of leucocytes’ pixels of this kind of
cytological image is often less than 1% of the total pixels,
it will be inevitably generated that the grey values of
leucocytes’ area of G channel set to 0. Then the hues of
leucocytes’ and erythrocytes’ from a normalized image
have more overlap certainly, and the span of erythro-
cytes’ hue is very large, it is adverse to segmentation of
leucocyte of blood cytological image.
Under the circumstances, which the number of leuco-
cytes’ pixels of cytological image is far less than the
number of erythrocytes’, the parameters 2
, 2
of G
channel should be adjusted by

22
min I0.1x,y
 (5)

22
maxI0.15x,y

(6)
where 0.1 and 0.15 are corrected value of many expe-
riments, which is in order to ensure that most of leuco-
cytes’ area of G channel of image by CCIN can be re-
0100 200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
0100 200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
0100 200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
(a)
0100 200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
0100 200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
0100 200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
(b)
Figure 7. Contrast the histograms of components of RGB
between a primal image and the image by CCIN: (a) The
histograms of components of RGB of a primal image; (b)
The histograms of components of RGB of the image by
CCIN.
Open Access JSIP
Preprocessing of Separating Leukocytes Based on Setting Parameters of Lightness Transformation
404
tained; The parameters 2
, 2
of components of R
and B remain unchanged.
By the adjusted CCIN, we can obtain a better normal-
ized image in Figure 8(a). The hue histogram of the
normalized image after discarding background pixels is
shown in Figure 8(b). Obviously, the hues of leucocytes’
and erythrocytes’ can be separated easily at this time,
then by taking threshold value 180 of segmentation be-
tween leucocytes and erythrocyte, and we can achieve a
better image of leucocytes from cytological image.
3. Result and Analysis
The images used in our experiment were acquired from
blood smears stained with Wright's stain. And in order to
meet the computing power of MATLAB program, the
resolution ratio of images is adjusted to 241 × 320 pixels
in the first step of the preprocessing, which still hold im-
ages in true color format.
Figure 9 shows the leukocytes of blood cytological
image from Figure 4(a), which is acquired by CCIN
directly and the effect is okay.
Similarly, Figure 10 is the leukocytes of blood cyto-
logical image from Figure 5(a), gained by CCIN directly,
and the effect of its segmentation is so bad.
However, in that case, using the adjusted CCIN, which
is proposed by this paper, we can get a good result of
leukocytes’ segmentation, as shown in the Figure 11.
A series of experiments are performed to test the effi-
ciency of our method, against a lot of cytological image
by Wright Stain. Separating leukocytes were performed
(a)
0
100
200
300
400
500
30 60 90120150180210240270300330360
(b)
Figure 8. Images about processing of primal image: (a) Im-
age by the adjusted CCIN; (b) Hue histogram without
points whose L 0.9.
(a) (b)
Figure 9. The image of leukocytes’ segmentation: (a) The
mask image; (b) Leukocyte image by hue threshold.
(a) (b)
Figure 10. The image of leukocytes’ segmentation: (a) The
mask image; (b) Leukocyte image by hue threshold.
(a) (b)
Figure 11. The image of leukocytes’ segmentation: (a) The
binary image; (b) Leukocyte image by hue threshold.
using different threshold and the results are shown in
Figure 12. Figure 12(a) is the primal cytological image,
Figure 12(b) represents the image processed by CCIN
method, and Figure 12(c) is the result processed with the
mask, Figure 12(d) shows the result obtained by thresh-
old method with Green channel.
Comparing Figure 12(c) with Figure 12(d), we find
that the leukocytes are successfully separated using our
method, while retaining the essential information of nu-
cleus and cytoplasm retained much more. The cytoplasm
marked by circle, which was missed in the process of
gray threshold, is retained completely. It is also easy to
find that the remnants of erythrocytes are still visible in
Figure 12(d), but the leukocytes are clearly separated
from the primal image without any visible remnants of
erythrocytes in Figure 12(c).
Normally, the image segmentation based on gray thresh-
old method is suited to the images which only include
one or two leukocytes and a small number of erythro-
cytes, whose distribution of gray value are a ladder along
nucleus, cytoplasm to erythrocyte. But when the image
Open Access JSIP
Preprocessing of Separating Leukocytes Based on Setting Parameters of Lightness Transformation 405
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 12. The method of separating leukocyte with mask
almost perfectly stayed all the leukocyte images: (a) Primal
color image; (b) Image processed by CCIN; (c) Separated
by hue threshold; (d) Separated by gray threshold.
includes many leukocytes and erythrocytes or fewer leu-
kocytes and more erythrocytes, cytoplasm cannot be
separated because the gray values of nucleus, cytoplasm
and erythrocyte overlap seriously in histogram.
Figure 13 shows the result of Leukocytes Segmenta-
tion from an image of many leukocytes and erythrocytes
by random sampling in the experiment of cytological
image using CCIN, which is non-good blood smear. And
the effect of segmentation is vivid.
And as shown in the Figure 14, the effect of Leuko-
cytes Segmentation from a cytological image of fewer
leukocytes is remarkable by using the adjusted CCIN.
In fact, more complicated situations should be re-
solved in cytological image, such as non-good blood
smear, and defective blood smear. In our work, we also
tried to deal with these complicated situations. Utilizing
our method into these situations, we obtained quite good
results as shown in Figure 15.
4. Conclusion
The leukocytes segmentation of cytological images is a
very important and difficult link in the automatic analysis
of computer. Generally, traditional segmentation method
of cytological image could lose a lot of important infor-
mation, which is based on monochrome image. In this
paper, we proposed an image preprocessing method com-
bining RGB and HSL color spaces to separate leukocyte
from cytological images. After using CCIN or the ad-
justed CCIN method to process the primal images, the
characteristics of histogram of leukocyte and erythrocyte
are presented on hue component in HSL color space obvi-
ously, which can be used to segmentation of cytological
image. The results of many experiments show that our
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 13. Image of many leukocytes and erythrocytes: (a)
Primal image of non-good blood smear; (b) Image by CCIN;
(c) Leukocyte image by hue threshold.
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 14. Image of fewer leukocytes: (a) Primal image; (b)
Image by the adjusted CCIN; (c) Leukocyte image by hue
threshold.
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 15. Image of defective blood smear: (a) Primal image;
(b) Image by CCIN; (c) Leukocyte image by hue threshold.
Open Access JSIP
Preprocessing of Separating Leukocytes Based on Setting Parameters of Lightness Transformation
Open Access JSIP
406
method has more advantages than classical gray threshold
value preprocessing, which can greatly improve the ac-
curacy of leukocyte identification. In our opinion, it has a
good perspective in the field of cytological image proc-
essing.
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