Image processing method, an image processing apparatus, and a storage medium readable by a computer

Abstract

Abstract An image processing method comprises the steps of setting a trash image candidate by defining the set of locations of the quadratic differential value of the lightness component of pixel signals, which changes from the value exceeding a positive first threshold value to the value less than a negative second threshold value for the adjacent pixels in a digital image, as the contours of such trash image candidate, extracting the trash area by defining it from among the trash area candidates having the changes of lightness components and saturation components between inner adjacent pixels within a specific range, and interpolating the pixel signals in the trash area in order of larger pixel numbers having effective pixels by use of the signals of effective circumferential pixels. Here, the pixels whose interpolation has been executed are used as new effective pixels, thus making it possible to interpolate the pixels in the trash area from the outer side to the inner side one after another. For the pixels having the same numbers of the adjacently effective pixels, the pixels are interpolated after obtaining only interpolated values of all of them. Hence, the trash images are removed for image correction effectively without deteriorating the quality of original image in the area other than the trash area.

Inventors

• 👤 Yasushi Morimoto

Bibliographic Details