How to discard the edges of an image using opencv?

Question

I'm pre-processing some images in order to remove the background from my area of ​​interest. However, the images on my bench have rounded edges due to the focus of the camera. How do I discard these rounded edges and be able to remove only my object of interest from the image? The code below I can remove the background of the image, but it does not work right due to the edges around.

import numpy as np
import cv2

#Read the image and perform threshold and get its height and weight
img = cv2.imread('IMD408.bmp')
h, w = img.shape[:2]

# Transform to gray colorspace and blur the image.
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
blur = cv2.GaussianBlur(gray,(5,5),0)

# Make a fake rectangle arround the image that will seperate the main contour.
cv2.rectangle(blur, (0,0), (w,h), (255,255,255), 10)

# Perform Otsu threshold.
_,thresh = cv2.threshold(blur,0,255,cv2.THRESH_BINARY_INV+cv2.THRESH_OTSU)

# Create a mask for bitwise operation
mask = np.zeros((h, w), np.uint8)

# Search for contours and iterate over contours. Make threshold for size to
# eliminate others.
contours, hierarchy = cv2.findContours(thresh,cv2.RETR_TREE,cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_NONE)

for i in contours:
    cnt = cv2.contourArea(i)
    if 1000000 >cnt > 100000:
        cv2.drawContours(mask, [i],-1, 255, -1)


# Perform the bitwise operation.
res = cv2.bitwise_and(img, img, mask=mask)

# Display the result.
cv2.imwrite('IMD408.png', res)
cv2.imshow('img', res)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

input image:

Exit:

Error:

Answer 1

Since you mentioned that all the images have the same hue, then this should work well for them. Steps is to do some white balancing which will increase the contrast a bit.

Get the greyscale.

Threshold the grayscale image. Values less than 127 are set to 255 (white). This will give you a binary image, which will become a mask for the original image.

Apply the mask

You might have to play around with the thresholding if you want better results, here is the link for that. But this should get you started. I'm using a different OpenCV version compared to you might have to tweak the code a bit.

import cv2

def equaliseWhiteBalance(image):
    ''' Return equilised WB of an image '''
    wb = cv2.xphoto.createSimpleWB()                        #Create WB Object
    imgWB = wb.balanceWhite(img)                            #Balance White on image
    r,g,b = cv2.split(imgWB)                                #Get individual r,g,b channels
    r_equ  = cv2.equalizeHist(r)                            #Equalise RED channel
    g_equ  = cv2.equalizeHist(g)                            #Equalise GREEN channel
    b_equ  = cv2.equalizeHist(b)                            #Equalise BLUE channel
    img_equ_WB = cv2.merge([r_equ,g_equ,b_equ])             #Merge equalised channels
    return imgWB

#Read the image
img = cv2.imread('IMD408.bmp')
result = img.copy()

#Get whiteBalance of image
imgWB = equaliseWhiteBalance(img)

cv2.imshow('img', imgWB)
cv2.waitKey(0)

# Get gray image
gray = cv2.cvtColor(imgWB,cv2.COLOR_RGB2GRAY)
cv2.imshow('img', gray)
cv2.waitKey(0)

# Perform threshold
_, thresh = cv2.threshold(gray,127,255,cv2.THRESH_BINARY)
cv2.imshow('img', thresh)
cv2.waitKey(0)

# Apply mask
result[thresh!=0] = (255,255,255)

cv2.imshow('img', result)
cv2.waitKey(0)

If all the dark corner vignettes have different sizes per image, then I suggest looking for centroid of contours on the binary (mask) image. Centroids with a 'short' distance to any corner of your image will be the dark vignettes, so their value can be changed from black to white.