Properties of histogram equalization? Enhance contrast without artefacts?

Question

In my case histogram equalization produces a lot of artifacts on shaded areas after Canny processing. Actually these areas contain very slow color variations, but they are enhanced by equalizer.

Is there a method to enhance contrast linearly, i.e. just make darkest pixel black and lightest pixel white, remaining all other pixels being of the same relative intensity?

UPDATE

How to make automatic gamma or contrast correction, so that histogram correction does?

Answer 1

You might want to consider gamma correction for your pixels.