NAME

       pnmnorm - normalize the contrast in a Netbpm image

SYNOPSIS

       pnmnorm [-bpercent N | -bvalue N] [-wpercent N | -wvalue N] [-keephues] [-brightmax]

       [ppmfile]

       All  options  can be abbreviated to their shortest unique prefix.  You may use two hyphens
       instead of one to designate an option.  You may use either white space or an  equals  sign
       between an option name and its value.

DESCRIPTION

       Reads  a  PNM  image  (PBM, PGM, or PPM).  Normalizes the contrast by forcing the lightest
       pixels to white, the darkest pixels to black, and linearly rescaling the ones in  between;
       and produces the same kind of file as output.  This is pretty useless for a PBM image.

       The  program  first  determines  a  mapping of old brightness to new brightness.  For each
       possible brightness of a pixel, the program determines a corresponding brightness for  the
       output image.

       Then  for  each  pixel  in  the  image, the program computes a color which has the desired
       output brightness and puts that in the output.  With a  color  image,  it  is  not  always
       possible  to  compute  such  a  color and retain any semblance of the original hue, so the
       brightest and dimmest pixels may only approximate the desired brightness.

       Note that for a PPM image, this is different from separately  normalizing  the  individual
       color components.

OPTIONS

       By  default,  the  darkest 2 percent of all pixels are mapped to black, and the lightest 1
       percent are mapped to white.  You can override these percentages by  using  the  -bpercent
       and  -wpercent  flags, or you can specify the exact pixel values to be mapped by using the
       -bvalue and -wvalue flags.  Appropriate numbers for the  flags  can  be  gotten  from  the
       ppmhist  tool.   If you just want to enhance the contrast, then choose values at elbows in
       the histogram; e.g. if value 29 represents 3% of the image but value  30  represents  20%,
       choose  30  for  bvalue.   If you want to lighten the image, then set bvalue to 0 and just
       fiddle with wvalue; similarly, to darken the image, set wvalue to  maxval  and  play  with
       bvalue.

       The  -keephues  option  says  to  keep each pixel the same hue as it is in the input; just
       adjust  its  intensity.   By  default,  pnmnorm  normalizes  contrast  in  each  component
       independently (except that the meaning of the -wpercent and -bpercent options are based on
       the overall intensities of the colors, not each component taken separately).   So  if  you
       have  a  color  which  is  intensely  red but dimly green, pnmnorm would make the red more
       intense and the green less intense, so you end up with a different hue  than  you  started
       with.

       If  you  specify -keephues, pnmnorm would likely leave this pixel alone, since its overall
       intensity is medium.

       -keephues can cause clipping, because a certain color may  be  below  a  target  intensity
       while one of its components is saturated.  Where that's the case, pnmnorm uses the maximum
       representable intensity for the saturated component  and  the  pixel  ends  up  with  less
       overall intensity, and a different hue, than it is supposed to have.

       This option is meaningless on grayscale images.

       Before March 2002, there was no -keephues option.

       The  -brightmax  option  says  to use the intensity of the most intense RGB component of a
       pixel as the pixel's brightness.  By default, pnmnorm uses the luminosity of the color  as
       its brightness.

       This option is meaningless on grayscale images.

       Before March 2002, there was no -brightmax option.

SEE ALSO

       ppmhist(1), pgmhist(1), pnmgamma(1), ppmbrighten(1), ppmdim(1), pnm(5)

                                          7 October 1993                               pnmnorm(1)