Noise reduction of panchromatic and color image

• US 7,876,956 B2
• Filed: 11/10/2006
• Issued: 01/25/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Omnivision Technologies Incorporated (Will Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Shanghai)
• Original Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
• Inventors: Adams, James E. Jr., Pillman, Bruce H., O'Brien, Michele
• Primary Examiner(s): Ahmed; Samir A.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Liu; Li
• Application Number:
  US11/558,571
• Publication Number:
  US 20080112612A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,537 Days
• Field of Search: 382/162, 382/167, 348/272, 348/273, 348276-280
• US Class Current: 382/167
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10024 Color image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4015 Image demosaicing, e.g. colour filter arrays [CFA] or Bayer patterns
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/20 using local operators
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/50 using two or more images, e.g. averaging or subtraction
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing

Abstract

A method for producing a noise-reduced digital color image, includes providing an image having panchromatic pixels and color pixels corresponding to at least two color photoresponses; providing from the image a panchromatic image and at least one color image; and using the panchromatic image and the color image to produce the noise-reduced digital color image.

Claims

1. A method for producing a noise-reduced digital color image, comprising:

(a) providing an image having panchromatic pixels and color pixels corresponding to at least three color photoresponses;

(b) providing from the image a panchromatic image and interpolating the panchromatic image to provide a full-resolution panchromatic image;

(c) using the full-resolution panchromatic image and neighboring same color pixel values to produce a noise-reduced color pixel and repeating this step for each color pixel; and

(d) interpolating the noise-reduced color pixels to produce interpolated color pixels to thereby provide a noise-reduced digital color image.

2. The method of claim 1 further includes providing further noise reduction on the noise-reduced digital color image to produce a final noise-reduced digital color image.

3. The method of claim 1 further including noise-reducing all panchromatic values in the full-resolution panchromatic image prior to step (c) to produce a noise-reduced full-resolution panchromatic image.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein step a) includes color pixels having the following photosensitivities of red, green, and blue.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein step a) includes color pixels having the following photosensitivities of cyan, magenta, and yellow.