GLOBAL WHITE POINT DETECTION AND WHITE BALANCE FOR COLOR IMAGES

A methodology for white balancing a digital color image in its entirety without segmenting the image into sections. In one embodiment, the images (still or video) are captured and transferred to a computer, and software loaded in the computer then performs the white balancing methodology. A global white point is generated for a color image based on pixels of the image that are in a given percentile of frequency distribution, such as one that is part of a histogram. Pixel adjusting values are then computed for the image and used to white balance the entire image indiscriminately to improve its color quality.