Video image quality may be improved by correcting exposure levels and/or enhancing contrast amounts on each frame. One or more of the following phases may be implemented: skin-color model building, face detecting, exposure level correcting, and contrast enhancing. In a described implementation, a Gaussian skin-color model is built for each image frame during runtime. The Gaussian skin-color model is built with training pixels that are selected responsive to a defined skin color range, which is created offline from manually-selected skin pixels of multiple test sequences. In another described implementation, each pixel of an image frame is re-exposed using a ratio of contrast amount control variables (CACVs). More specifically, a pixel may be converted to a corresponding light intensity using a first CACV, and the corresponding light intensity may be reconverted to a pixel using a second CACV to enhance the contrast and possibly reduce fuzziness of the image frame.