Develop Reference

Detect very small circle and get their information (Opencv)

I am trying to detect each small circle (it is the bead part of the radial tires from the cross-sectional image)located as shown in the image and get their information(optional). To improve the detection process I have performed a few image processing steps including median blurring and binary thresholding (the general binary thresholding and inverse binary thresholding). I am using HoughCicle transform to detect the circles however I stucked and couldn't be able to detect it yet.
Please, any suggestions? Thank you very much.
This is the original image
Cropped image (it is the area where the circle I want to detect appear)
This is the binary image output and cropped it to remove the unnecessary part
As such, I'm trying to detect each circle from the binary image shown in the image below like marked in red.
Final preprocessed image
I used the following code
import cv2
import numpy as np
import os
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
############# preprocessing ##################
img = cv2.imread('BD-2021.png')
median_5 = cv2.medianBlur(img, 5) # median filtering
image_masked = cv2.cvtColor(median_5, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY) # converting to grayscael
res,thresh_img=cv2.threshold(image_masked,230,255,cv2.THRESH_BINARY_INV) # inverse binary
# res,thresh_img_b=cv2.threshold(image_masked,200,255,cv2.THRESH_BINARY) # global binary
height, width = thresh_img.shape
img_crop = thresh_img[int(0.7*height):height,:width]
# reverse_thresh = cv2.cvtColor(thresh_img,cv2.COLOR_GRAY2BGR)
############# Hough circle detection ##################
c = cv2.HoughCircles(img_crop, cv2.HOUGH_GRADIENT,
minDist=2, dp=1, param1=70,
param2=12, minRadius=0,maxRadius=5)
c = np.uint16(np.around(c))
for i in c[0,:]:
# draw the outer circle
cv2.circle(img,(i[0],i[1]),i[2],(0,255,0),2)
# cv2.circle(reverse_thresh,(i[0],i[1]),i[2],(0,255,0),2)
# draw the center of the circle
cv2.circle(img,(i[0],i[1]),2,(0,0,255),3)
# cv2.circle(reverse_thresh,(i[0],i[1]),2,(0,0,255),3)
cv2.imshow('circle detected',img)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
I would appreciate for any recommendation ? Thank you once again.

I would recommend using the Blob Detection Algorithm. This algorithm is the first part of the SIFT descriptor and is fairly easy to implement. The blob detection algorithm involves finding blobs in the picture using the Laplacian of Gaussian convolution (LoG) which can be approximated as a difference of gaussians. A good explanation on the scale space and how to implement the blob detection is given here.

Resizing non uniform images with precise face location

I work at a studio that does school photos and we are trying to make a script to eliminate the job of cropping each photo to a template. The photos we work with are fairly uniform but they vary in resolution and head position a bit. I took up the mantle of trying to write the script with my fairly limited Python knowledge and through a lot of trial and error and online resources I think I have got most of the way there.
At the moment I am trying to figure out the best way to have the image crop from the NumPy array with the head where I want and I just cant find a good flexible solution. The head needs to be positioned slightly differently for pose 1 and pose 2 so its needs to be easy to change on the fly (Probably going to implement some sort of simple GUI to input stuff like that, but for now I can just change the code).
I also need to be able to change the output resolution of the photo so they are all uniform (2000x2500). Anyone have any ideas?
At the moment this is my current code, it just saves the detected face square:
import cv2
import os.path
import glob
# Cascade path
cascPath = 'haarcascade_frontalface_default.xml'
# Create the haar cascade
faceCascade = cv2.CascadeClassifier(cascPath)
#Check for output folder and create if its not there
if not os.path.exists('output'):
os.makedirs('output')
# Read Images
images = glob.glob('*.jpg')
for c, i in enumerate(images):
image = cv2.imread(i, 1)
# Convert to grayscale
gray = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
# Find face(s) using cascade
faces = faceCascade.detectMultiScale(
gray,
scaleFactor=1.1, # size of groups
minNeighbors=5, # How many groups around are detected as face for it to be valid
minSize=(500, 500) # Min size in pixels for face
)
# Outputs number of faces found in image
print('Found {0} faces!'.format(len(faces)))
# Places a rectangle on face
for (x, y, w, h) in faces:
imgCrop = image[y:y+h,x:x+w]
if len(faces) > 0:
#Saves Images to output folder with OG name
cv2.imwrite('output/'+ i, imgCrop)
I can crop using it like this:
# Crop Padding
left = 300
right = 300
top = 400
bottom = 1000
for (x, y, w, h) in faces:
imgCrop = image[y-top:y+h+bottom, x-left:x+w+right]
but that outputs pretty random resolutions and changes based on the image resolution

TL;DR
To set a new resolution with the dimension, you can use cv2.resize. There may be a pixel loss so you can use the interpolation method.
The newly resized image may be in BGR format, so you may need to convert to RGB format.
cv2.resize(src=crop, dsize=(2000, 2500), interpolation=cv2.INTER_LANCZOS4)
crop = cv2.cvtColor(crop, cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGB) # Make sure the cropped image is in RGB format
cv2.imwrite("image-1.png", crop)
Suggestion:
One approach is using python's face-recognition library.
The approach is using two sample images for training.
Predict the next image based on training images.
For instance, The followings are the training images:
We want to predict the faces in the below image:
When we get the facial encodings of the training images and apply to the next image:
import face_recognition
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from PIL import Image, ImageDraw
# Load a sample picture and learn how to recognize it.
first_image = face_recognition.load_image_file("images/ex.jpg")
first_face_encoding = face_recognition.face_encodings(first_image)[0]
# Load a second sample picture and learn how to recognize it.
second_image = face_recognition.load_image_file("images/index.jpg")
sec_face_encoding = face_recognition.face_encodings(second_image)[0]
# Create arrays of known face encodings and their names
known_face_encodings = [
first_face_encoding,
sec_face_encoding
]
print('Learned encoding for', len(known_face_encodings), 'images.')
# Load an image with an unknown face
unknown_image = face_recognition.load_image_file("images/babes.jpg")
# Find all the faces and face encodings in the unknown image
face_locations = face_recognition.face_locations(unknown_image)
face_encodings = face_recognition.face_encodings(unknown_image, face_locations)
# Convert the image to a PIL-format image so that we can draw on top of it with the Pillow library
# See http://pillow.readthedocs.io/ for more about PIL/Pillow
pil_image = Image.fromarray(unknown_image)
# Create a Pillow ImageDraw Draw instance to draw with
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(pil_image)
# Loop through each face found in the unknown image
for (top, right, bottom, left), face_encoding in zip(face_locations, face_encodings):
matches = face_recognition.compare_faces(known_face_encodings, face_encoding)
face_distances = face_recognition.face_distance(known_face_encodings, face_encoding)
best_match_index = np.argmin(face_distances)
draw.rectangle(((left, top), (right, bottom)), outline=(0, 0, 255), width=5)
# Remove the drawing library from memory as per the Pillow docs
del draw
# Display the resulting image
plt.imshow(pil_image)
plt.show()
The output will be:
The above is my suggestion. When you create a new resolution with the current image, there will be a pixel loss. Therefore you need to use an interpolation method.
For instance: after finding the face locations, select the coordinates in the original image.
# Add after draw.rectangle function.
crop = unknown_image[top:bottom, left:right]
Set new resolution with the size 2000 x 2500 and interpolation with CV2.INTERN_LANCZOS4.
Possible Question: Why CV2.INTERN_LANCZOS4?
Of course, you can select whatever you like, but in this post CV2.INTERN_LANCZOS4 was suggested.
cv2.resize(src=crop, dsize=(2000, 2500), interpolation=cv2.INTER_LANCZOS4)
Save the image
crop = cv2.cvtColor(crop, cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGB) # Make sure the cropped image is in RGB format
cv2.imwrite("image-1.png", crop)
Outputs are around 4.3 MB Therefore I can't display in here.
From the final result, we clearly see and identify faces. The library precisely finds the faces in the image.
Here what you can do:
Either you can use the training images of your own-set, or you can use the example above.
Apply the face-recognition function for each image, using the trained face-locations and save the results in the directory.

here is how I got it to crop how I wanted, this is added right below the "output number of faces" function
#Get the face postion and output values into variables, might not be needed but I did it
for (x, y, w, h) in faces:
xdis = x
ydis = y
w = w
h = h
#Get scale value by dividing wanted head hight by detected head hight
ws = 600/w
hs = 600/h
#scale image to get head to right size, uses bilinear interpolation by default
scale = cv2.resize(image,(0,0),fx=hs,fy=ws)
#calculate head postion for given values
sxdis = int(xdis*ws) #applying scale to x distance and turning it into a integer
sydis = int(ydis*hs) #applying scale to y distance and turning it into a integer
sycent = sydis+300 #adding half head hight to get center
ystart = sycent-700 #subtract where you want the head center to be in pixels, this is for the vertical
yend = ystart+2500 #Add whatever you want vertical resolution to be
xcent = sxdis+300 #adding half head hight to get center
xstart = xcent-1000 #subtract where you want the head center to be in pixels, this is for the horizontal
xend = xstart+2000 #add whatever you want the horizontal resolution to be
#Crop the image
cropped = scale[ystart:yend, xstart:xend]
Its a mess but it works exactly how I wanted it to work.
ended up going with openCV instead of switching to python-Recognition because of speed but I might switch over if I can get multithreading to work in python-recognition.

Detect if an OCR text image is upside down

I have some hundreds of images (scanned documents), most of them are skewed. I wanted to de-skew them using Python.
Here is the code I used:
import numpy as np
import cv2
from skimage.transform import radon
filename = 'path_to_filename'
# Load file, converting to grayscale
img = cv2.imread(filename)
I = cv2.cvtColor(img, COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
h, w = I.shape
# If the resolution is high, resize the image to reduce processing time.
if (w > 640):
I = cv2.resize(I, (640, int((h / w) * 640)))
I = I - np.mean(I) # Demean; make the brightness extend above and below zero
# Do the radon transform
sinogram = radon(I)
# Find the RMS value of each row and find "busiest" rotation,
# where the transform is lined up perfectly with the alternating dark
# text and white lines
r = np.array([np.sqrt(np.mean(np.abs(line) ** 2)) for line in sinogram.transpose()])
rotation = np.argmax(r)
print('Rotation: {:.2f} degrees'.format(90 - rotation))
# Rotate and save with the original resolution
M = cv2.getRotationMatrix2D((w/2,h/2),90 - rotation,1)
dst = cv2.warpAffine(img,M,(w,h))
cv2.imwrite('rotated.jpg', dst)
This code works well with most of the documents, except with some angles: (180 and 0) and (90 and 270) are often detected as the same angle (i.e it does not make difference between (180 and 0) and (90 and 270)). So I get a lot of upside-down documents.
Here is an example:
The resulted image that I get is the same as the input image.
Is there any suggestion to detect if an image is upside down using Opencv and Python?
PS: I tried to check the orientation using EXIF data, but it didn't lead to any solution.
EDIT:
It is possible to detect the orientation using Tesseract (pytesseract for Python), but it is only possible when the image contains a lot of characters.
For anyone who may need this:
import cv2
import pytesseract
print(pytesseract.image_to_osd(cv2.imread(file_name)))
If the document contains enough characters, it is possible for Tesseract to detect the orientation. However, when the image has few lines, the orientation angle suggested by Tesseract is usually wrong. So this can not be a 100% solution.

Python3/OpenCV4 script to align scanned documents.
Rotate the document and sum the rows. When the document has 0 and 180 degrees of rotation, there will be a lot of black pixels in the image:
Use a score keeping method. Score each image for it's likeness to a zebra pattern. The image with the best score has the correct rotation. The image you linked to was off by 0.5 degrees. I omitted some functions for readability, the full code can be found here.
# Rotate the image around in a circle
angle = 0
while angle <= 360:
# Rotate the source image
img = rotate(src, angle)
# Crop the center 1/3rd of the image (roi is filled with text)
h,w = img.shape
buffer = min(h, w) - int(min(h,w)/1.15)
roi = img[int(h/2-buffer):int(h/2+buffer), int(w/2-buffer):int(w/2+buffer)]
# Create background to draw transform on
bg = np.zeros((buffer*2, buffer*2), np.uint8)
# Compute the sums of the rows
row_sums = sum_rows(roi)
# High score --> Zebra stripes
score = np.count_nonzero(row_sums)
scores.append(score)
# Image has best rotation
if score <= min(scores):
# Save the rotatied image
print('found optimal rotation')
best_rotation = img.copy()
k = display_data(roi, row_sums, buffer)
if k == 27: break
# Increment angle and try again
angle += .75
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
How to tell if the document is upside down? Fill in the area from the top of the document to the first non-black pixel in the image. Measure the area in yellow. The image that has the smallest area will be the one that is right-side-up:
# Find the area from the top of page to top of image
_, bg = area_to_top_of_text(best_rotation.copy())
right_side_up = sum(sum(bg))
# Flip image and try again
best_rotation_flipped = rotate(best_rotation, 180)
_, bg = area_to_top_of_text(best_rotation_flipped.copy())
upside_down = sum(sum(bg))
# Check which area is larger
if right_side_up < upside_down: aligned_image = best_rotation
else: aligned_image = best_rotation_flipped
# Save aligned image
cv2.imwrite('/home/stephen/Desktop/best_rotation.png', 255-aligned_image)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

Assuming you did run the angle-correction already on the image, you can try the following to find out if it is flipped:
Project the corrected image to the y-axis, so that you get a 'peak' for each line. Important: There are actually almost always two sub-peaks!
Smooth this projection by convolving with a gaussian in order to get rid of fine structure, noise, etc.
For each peak, check if the stronger sub-peak is on top or at the bottom.
Calculate the fraction of peaks that have sub-peaks on the bottom side. This is your scalar value that gives you the confidence that the image is oriented correctly.
The peak finding in step 3 is done by finding sections with above average values. The sub-peaks are then found via argmax.
Here's a figure to illustrate the approach; A few lines of you example image
Blue: Original projection
Orange: smoothed projection
Horizontal line: average of the smoothed projection for the whole image.
here's some code that does this:
import cv2
import numpy as np
# load image, convert to grayscale, threshold it at 127 and invert.
page = cv2.imread('Page.jpg')
page = cv2.cvtColor(page, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
page = cv2.threshold(page, 127, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY_INV)[1]
# project the page to the side and smooth it with a gaussian
projection = np.sum(page, 1)
gaussian_filter = np.exp(-(np.arange(-3, 3, 0.1)**2))
gaussian_filter /= np.sum(gaussian_filter)
smooth = np.convolve(projection, gaussian_filter)
# find the pixel values where we expect lines to start and end
mask = smooth > np.average(smooth)
edges = np.convolve(mask, [1, -1])
line_starts = np.where(edges == 1)[0]
line_endings = np.where(edges == -1)[0]
# count lines with peaks on the lower side
lower_peaks = 0
for start, end in zip(line_starts, line_endings):
line = smooth[start:end]
if np.argmax(line) < len(line)/2:
lower_peaks += 1
print(lower_peaks / len(line_starts))
this prints 0.125 for the given image, so this is not oriented correctly and must be flipped.
Note that this approach might break badly if there are images or anything not organized in lines in the image (maybe math or pictures). Another problem would be too few lines, resulting in bad statistics.
Also different fonts might result in different distributions. You can try this on a few images and see if the approach works. I don't have enough data.

You can use the Alyn module. To install it:
pip install alyn
Then to use it to deskew images(Taken from the homepage):
from alyn import Deskew
d = Deskew(
input_file='path_to_file',
display_image='preview the image on screen',
output_file='path_for_deskewed image',
r_angle='offest_angle_in_degrees_to_control_orientation')`
d.run()
Note that Alyn is only for deskewing text.

Camera calibration for Structure from Motion with OpenCV (Python)

I want to calibrate a car video recorder and use it for 3D reconstruction with Structure from Motion (SfM). The original size of the pictures I have took with this camera is 1920x1080. Basically, I have been using the source code from the OpenCV tutorial for the calibration.
But there are some problems and I would really appreciate any help.
So, as usual (at least in the above source code), here is the pipeline:
Find the chessboard corner with findChessboardCorners
Get its subpixel value with cornerSubPix
Draw it for visualisation with drawhessboardCorners
Then, we calibrate the camera with a call to calibrateCamera
Call the getOptimalNewCameraMatrix and the undistort function to undistort the image
In my case, since the image is too big (1920x1080), I have resized it to 640x320 (during SfM, I will also use this size of image, so, I don't think it would be any problem). And also, I have used a 9x6 chessboard corners for the calibration.
Here, the problem arose. After a call to the getOptimalNewCameraMatrix, the distortion come out totally wrong. Even the returned ROI is [0,0,0,0]. Below is the original image and its undistorted version:
You can see the image in the undistorted image is at the bottom left.
But, if I didn't call the getOptimalNewCameraMatrix and just straight undistort it, I got a quite good image.
So, I have three questions.
Why is this? I have tried with another dataset taken with the same camera, and also with my iPhone 6 Plus, but the results are same as above.
Another question is, what is the getOptimalNewCameraMatrix does? I have read the documentations several times but still cannot understand it. From what I have observed, if I didn't call the getOptimalNewCameraMatrix, my image will retain its size but it would be zoomed and blurred. Can anybody explain this function in more detail for me?
For SfM, I guess the call to getOptimalNewCameraMatrix is important? Because if not, the undistorted image would be zoomed and blurred, making the keypoint detection harder (in my case, I will be using the optical flow)?
I have tested the code with the opencv sample pictures and the results are just fine.
Below is my source code:
from sys import argv
import numpy as np
import imutils # To use the imutils.resize function.
# Resizing while preserving the image's ratio.
# In this case, resizing 1920x1080 into 640x360.
import cv2
import glob
# termination criteria
criteria = (cv2.TERM_CRITERIA_EPS + cv2.TERM_CRITERIA_MAX_ITER, 30, 0.001)
# prepare object points, like (0,0,0), (1,0,0), (2,0,0) ....,(6,5,0)
objp = np.zeros((9*6,3), np.float32)
objp[:,:2] = np.mgrid[0:9,0:6].T.reshape(-1,2)
# Arrays to store object points and image points from all the images.
objpoints = [] # 3d point in real world space
imgpoints = [] # 2d points in image plane.
images = glob.glob(argv[1] + '*.jpg')
width = 640
for fname in images:
img = cv2.imread(fname)
if width:
img = imutils.resize(img, width=width)
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img,cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
# Find the chess board corners
ret, corners = cv2.findChessboardCorners(gray, (9,6),None)
# If found, add object points, image points (after refining them)
if ret == True:
objpoints.append(objp)
corners2 = cv2.cornerSubPix(gray,corners,(11,11),(-1,-1),criteria)
imgpoints.append(corners2)
# Draw and display the corners
img = cv2.drawChessboardCorners(img, (9,6), corners2,ret)
cv2.imshow('img',img)
cv2.waitKey(500)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
ret, mtx, dist, rvecs, tvecs = cv2.calibrateCamera(objpoints, imgpoints, gray.shape[::-1],None,None)
for fname in images:
img = cv2.imread(fname)
if width:
img = imutils.resize(img, width=width)
h, w = img.shape[:2]
newcameramtx, roi=cv2.getOptimalNewCameraMatrix(mtx,dist,(w,h),1,(w,h))
# undistort
dst = cv2.undistort(img, mtx, dist, None, newcameramtx)
# crop the image
x,y,w,h = roi
dst = dst[y:y+h, x:x+w]
cv2.imshow("undistorted", dst)
cv2.waitKey(500)
mean_error = 0
for i in xrange(len(objpoints)):
imgpoints2, _ = cv2.projectPoints(objpoints[i], rvecs[i], tvecs[i], mtx, dist)
error = cv2.norm(imgpoints[i],imgpoints2, cv2.NORM_L2)/len(imgpoints2)
mean_error += error
print "total error: ", mean_error/len(objpoints)
Already ask someone in answers.opencv.org and he tried my code and my dataset with success. I wonder what is actually wrong.

Question #2:
With cv::getOptimalNewCameraMatrix(...) you can compute a new camera matrix according to the free scaling parameter alpha.
If alpha is set to 1 then all the source image pixels are retained in the undistorted image that is you'll see black and curved border along the undistorted image (like a pincushion). This scenario is unlucky for several computer vision algorithms, because new edges are appeared on the undistorted image for example.
By default cv::undistort(...) regulates the subset of the source image that will be visible in the corrected image and that's why only the sensible pixels are shown on that - no pincushion around the corrected image but data loss.
Anyway, you are allowed to control the subset of the source image that will be visible in the corrected image:
cv::Mat image, cameraMatrix, distCoeffs;
// ...
cv::Mat newCameraMatrix = cv::getOptimalNewCameraMatrix(cameraMatrix, distCoeffs, image.size(), 1.0);
cv::Mat correctedImage;
cv::undistort(image, correctedImage, cameraMatrix, distCoeffs, newCameraMatrix);
Question #1:
It is just my feeling, but you should also take care, if you resize your image after the calibration then the camera matrix must be also "scaled" as well, for example:
cv::Mat cameraMatrix;
cv::Size calibSize; // Image during the calibration, e.g. 1920x1080
cv::Size imageSize; // Your current image size, e.g. 640x320
// ...
cv::Matx31d t(0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
t(0) = (double)imageSize.width / (double)calibSize.width;
t(1) = (double)imageSize.height / (double)calibSize.height;
cameraMatrixScaled = cv::Mat::diag(cv::Mat(t)) * cameraMatrix;
This must be done only for the camera matrix, because the distortion coefficients do not depend on the resolution.
Question #3:
Whatever I think cv::getOptimalNewCameraMatrix(...) is not important in your case, the undistorted image can be zoomed and blurred because you remove the effect of a non-linear transformation. If I were you then I would try the optical flow without calling cv::undistort(...). I think that even a distorted image can contain a lot of good features for tracking.

What's the fastest way to increase color image contrast with OpenCV in python (cv2)?

I'm using OpenCV to process some images, and one of the first steps I need to perform is increasing the image contrast on a color image. The fastest method I've found so far uses this code (where np is the numpy import) to multiply and add as suggested in the original C-based cv1 docs:
if (self.array_alpha is None):
self.array_alpha = np.array([1.25])
self.array_beta = np.array([-100.0])
# add a beta value to every pixel
cv2.add(new_img, self.array_beta, new_img)
# multiply every pixel value by alpha
cv2.multiply(new_img, self.array_alpha, new_img)
Is there a faster way to do this in Python? I've tried using numpy's scalar multiply instead, but the performance is actually worse. I also tried using cv2.convertScaleAbs (the OpenCV docs suggested using convertTo, but cv2 seems to lack an interface to this function) but again the performance was worse in testing.

Simple arithmetic in numpy arrays is the fastest, as Abid Rahaman K commented.
Use this image for example: http://i.imgur.com/Yjo276D.png
Here is a bit of image processing that resembles brightness/contrast manipulation:
'''
Simple and fast image transforms to mimic:
- brightness
- contrast
- erosion
- dilation
'''
import cv2
from pylab import array, plot, show, axis, arange, figure, uint8
# Image data
image = cv2.imread('imgur.png',0) # load as 1-channel 8bit grayscale
cv2.imshow('image',image)
maxIntensity = 255.0 # depends on dtype of image data
x = arange(maxIntensity)
# Parameters for manipulating image data
phi = 1
theta = 1
# Increase intensity such that
# dark pixels become much brighter,
# bright pixels become slightly bright
newImage0 = (maxIntensity/phi)*(image/(maxIntensity/theta))**0.5
newImage0 = array(newImage0,dtype=uint8)
cv2.imshow('newImage0',newImage0)
cv2.imwrite('newImage0.jpg',newImage0)
y = (maxIntensity/phi)*(x/(maxIntensity/theta))**0.5
# Decrease intensity such that
# dark pixels become much darker,
# bright pixels become slightly dark
newImage1 = (maxIntensity/phi)*(image/(maxIntensity/theta))**2
newImage1 = array(newImage1,dtype=uint8)
cv2.imshow('newImage1',newImage1)
z = (maxIntensity/phi)*(x/(maxIntensity/theta))**2
# Plot the figures
figure()
plot(x,y,'r-') # Increased brightness
plot(x,x,'k:') # Original image
plot(x,z, 'b-') # Decreased brightness
#axis('off')
axis('tight')
show()
# Close figure window and click on other window
# Then press any keyboard key to close all windows
closeWindow = -1
while closeWindow<0:
closeWindow = cv2.waitKey(1)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Original image in grayscale:
Brightened image that appears to be dilated:
Darkened image that appears to be eroded, sharpened, with better contrast:
How the pixel intensities are being transformed:
If you play with the values of phi and theta you can get really interesting outcomes. You can also implement this trick for multichannel image data.
--- EDIT ---
have a look at the concepts of 'levels' and 'curves' on this youtube video showing image editing in photoshop. The equation for linear transform creates the same amount i.e. 'level' of change on every pixel. If you write an equation which can discriminate between types of pixel (e.g. those which are already of a certain value) then you can change the pixels based on the 'curve' described by that equation.

Try this code:
import cv2
img = cv2.imread('sunset.jpg', 1)
cv2.imshow("Original image",img)
# CLAHE (Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization)
clahe = cv2.createCLAHE(clipLimit=3., tileGridSize=(8,8))
lab = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2LAB) # convert from BGR to LAB color space
l, a, b = cv2.split(lab) # split on 3 different channels
l2 = clahe.apply(l) # apply CLAHE to the L-channel
lab = cv2.merge((l2,a,b)) # merge channels
img2 = cv2.cvtColor(lab, cv2.COLOR_LAB2BGR) # convert from LAB to BGR
cv2.imshow('Increased contrast', img2)
#cv2.imwrite('sunset_modified.jpg', img2)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()
Sunset before:
Sunset after increased contrast:

Use the cv2::addWeighted function. It will be faster than any of the other methods presented thus far. It's designed to work on two images:
dst = cv.addWeighted( src1, alpha, src2, beta, gamma[, dst[, dtype]] )
But if you use the same image twice AND you set beta to zero, you can get the effect you want
dst = cv.addWeighted( src1, alpha, src1, 0, gamma)
The big advantage to using this function is that you will not have to worry about what happens when values go below 0 or above 255. In numpy, you have to figure out how to do all of the clipping yourself. Using the OpenCV function, it does all of the clipping for you and it's fast.