#1 Auto-Brightness Improvement

[Brian C Vargas]

Hi,

A suggestion for improving the autobrightness routine:
Modify it so that it weights pixels nearer to the
center of the image more heavily than pixels on the
border of the image. Most people tend to focus their
camera on the object of interest, and background
lighting might be different than that on the foreground
object. However, the constant weighting of the
autobrightness leads to poor images when the foreground
and background brightness is vastly different.

For example, a moderately-lit foreground against a dark
background will lead to a very washed-out image because
the dark background images weigh down the brightness
average. Conversely, an moderately-lit foreground with
a very bright background will cause a silhouette of the
foreground image because the bright background brings
up the brightness average. In both cases, it is
desirable to have the moderately-lit foreground be of
consistent brightness.