The Impact of Image Quality on the Performance of Face Recognition

The performance of a face recognition system depends on the quality of both test and reference images participating in the face comparison process. In a forensic evaluation case involving face recognition, we do not have any control over the quality of the trace (image captured by a CCTV at a crime scene) and it is usually of very low quality. However, forensic investigators have some control over the quality of suspects reference images. In this paper, we investigate if it is useful to modify the quality of the reference (usually, good quality mug shot) images in order to achieve better recognition performance using a view based face recognition system. We found that approximately matching non-frontal pose between test and reference images can greatly improve recognition performance. Moreover, it is the relative difference in pose between the test and reference image that determines the extent of influence that other quality parameters like illumination, noise, motion blur, and resolution have on the face recognition performance.