Laplacian Sharpening result is kinda greyish C++ - c++

Question

I am trying to implement laplacian filter for sharpening an image.
but the result is kinda grey , I don't know what went wrong with my code.
Here's my work so far
img = imread("moon.png", 0);
Mat convoSharp() {
//creating new image
Mat res = img.clone();
for (int y = 0; y < res.rows; y++) {
for (int x = 0; x < res.cols; x++) {
res.at<uchar>(y, x) = 0.0;
}
}
//variable declaration
//change -5 to -4 for original result.
int filter[3][3] = { {0,1,0},{1,-4,1},{0,1,0} };
//int filter[3][3] = { {-1,-2,-1},{0,0,0},{1,2,1} };
int height = img.rows;
int width = img.cols;
int **temp = new int*[height];
for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
temp[i] = new int[width];
}
for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
temp[i][j] = 0;
}
}
int filterHeight = 3;
int filterWidth = 3;
int newImageHeight = height - filterHeight + 1;
int newImageWidth = width - filterWidth + 1;
int i, j, h, w;
//convolution
for (i = 0; i < newImageHeight; i++) {
for (j = 0; j < newImageWidth; j++) {
for (h = i; h < i + filterHeight; h++) {
for (w = j; w < j + filterWidth; w++) {
temp[i][j] += filter[h - i][w - j] * (int)img.at<uchar>(h, w);
}
}
}
}
//find max and min
int max = 0;
int min = 100;
for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
if (temp[i][j] > max) {
max = temp[i][j];
}
if (temp[i][j] < min) {
min = temp[i][j];
}
}
}
//clamp 0 - 255
for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
res.at<uchar>(i, j) = 0 + (temp[i][j] - min)*(255 - 0) / (max - min);
}
}
//empty the temp array
for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
temp[i][j] = 0;
}
}
//img - res and store it in temp array
for (int y = 0; y < res.rows; y++) {
for (int x = 0; x < res.cols; x++) {
//int a = (int)img.at<uchar>(y, x) - (int)res.at<uchar>(y, x);
//cout << a << endl;
temp[y][x] = (int)img.at<uchar>(y, x) - (int)res.at<uchar>(y, x);
}
}
//find the new max and min
max = 0;
min = 100;
for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
if (temp[i][j] > max) {
max = temp[i][j];
}
if (temp[i][j] < min) {
min = temp[i][j];
}
}
}
//clamp it back to 0-255
for (int i = 0; i < height; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < width; j++) {
res.at<uchar>(i, j) = 0 + (temp[i][j] - min)*(255 - 0) / (max - min);
temp[i][j] = (int)res.at<uchar>(i, j);
}
}
return res;
}
And here's the result
as you can see in my code above , i already normalize the pixel value to 0-255. i still don't know what went wrong here. Can anyone here explain why is that ?

Answer 1

The greyness is because, as Max suggested in his answer, you are scaling to the 0-255 range, not clamping (as your comments in the code suggest).
However, that is not all of the issues in your code. The output of the Laplace operator contains negative values. You nicely store these in an int. But then you scale and copy over to a char. Don't do that!
You need to add the result of the Laplace unchanged to your image. This way, some pixels in your image will become darker, and some lighter. This is what causes the edges to appear sharper.
Simply skip some of the loops in your code, and keep one that does temp = img - temp. That result you can freely scale or clamp to the output range and cast to char.
To clamp, simply set any pixel values below 0 to 0, and any above 255 to 255. Don't compute min/max and scale as you do, because there you reduce contrast and create the greyish wash over your image.
Your recent question is quite similar (though the problem in the code was different), read my answer there again, it suggests a way to further simplify your code so that img-Laplace becomes a single convolution.

Answer 2

The problem is that you are clamping and rescaling the image. Look at the bottom left border of the moon: There are very bright pixels next to very dark pixels, and then some gray pixels right besides the bright ones. Your sharpening filter will really spike on that bright border and increase the maximum. Similarly, the black pixels will be reduced even further.
You then determine minimum and maximum and rescale the entire image. This necessarily means the entire image will lose contrast when displayed in the previous gray scale, because your filter outputted pixel values above 255 and below 0.
Looks closely at the border of the moon in the output image:
There is a black halo (the new 0) and a bright, sharp edge (the new 255). (The browser image scaling made it less crisp in this screenshot, look at your original output). Everything else was squashed by the rescaling, so what was previous black (0) is now dark gray.