Standardization of color measurement in the medical photography in clinical practice

Abstract

BACKGROUND: For many medical specialties, photography is a routine element of work. Environmental factors equally and significantly influence the interpretation of colour light perception and the quality of photographic recording. Standardization of conditions in medical photography is necessary for subsequent quantitative assessment of the postoperative skin scar by analysing colour coordinates in the RGB system.

AIM: To determine the impact of illumination and shooting distance at colour coordinates when studying unaltered skin.

METHODS: Five volunteers without any skin diseases and no make-up on their facial skin were taken in the study. Skin type by the Fitzpatrick scale was II–III. Digital photography was made with a mobile device camera at distance 30 cm from the subject. For each participant, a series of digital photographs was taken at a distance of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 cm from the light source. Colour coordinates in the RGB system were measured in the digital graphics editor Adobe Photoshop CS6. Statistical analysis of the obtained data was carried out using Microsoft Office Excel 2019, Phyton 3.11.

RESULTS: The analysis of variance by the ANOVA method was used as a statistical analysis. In order to determine a statistically significant difference between the sets, Tukey HSD test was performed. A total of 1764 coordinates of three colours were subjected to statistical analysis (R=588, G=588, B=588). When constructing a heat map of the cross-correlation of the absolute values of each colour at each distance, taking into account the type of light source among themselves, the data had a strong direct correlation, regardless of the study area. When constructing a linear graph, coordinates of any of the zones were located on the same straight line.

CONCLUSION: Photography conditions were experimentally determined under which the color interpretation of light is constant. Results of the study should be taken into account during medical photography and subsequent color assessment of postoperative skin scars.

Keywords

medical photography / color coordinates / color constancy / skin scar assessment / colorimetry / surgery

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RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Savelyev D.S., Gorodkov S.Y., Goremykin I.V.