Fingernail area extraction using distribution of colors

A fingernail detection method with the allowance of the palm existence proposed. However, some fingernail areas cannot be extracted as nail candidate areas if they don't reflect enough light toward the camera. The authors found it a key to solve this problem to use the distribution of colors. The authors propose a new nail area extraction using this. In the experiments, the authors confirmed that our system using the proposed method could detect only fingernails at least 85% from -90 to -50 degrees and from 50 to 90 degrees and worked well from -50 to -30 degrees.