Category Archives: USM

Deconvolution, Sharpening, unsharp mask, USM

The Richardson-Lucy Algorithm

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Deconvolution by the Richardson-Lucy algorithm is achieved by minimizing the convex loss function derived in the last article

(1)   \begin{equation*} J(O) = \sum \bigg (O**PSF - I\cdot ln(O**PSF) \bigg) \end{equation*}

with

  • J, the scalar quantity to minimize, function of ideal image O(x,y)
  • I(x,y), linear captured image intensity laid out in M rows and N columns, corrupted by Poisson noise and blurred by the PSF
  • PSF(x,y), the known two-dimensional Point Spread Function that should be deconvolved out of I
  • O(x,y), the output image resulting from deconvolution, ideally without shot noise and blurring introduced by the PSF
  • **   two-dimensional convolution
  • \cdot   element-wise product
  • ln, element-wise natural logarithm

In what follows indices x and y, from zero to M-1 and N-1 respectively, are dropped for readability.  Articles about algorithms are by definition dry so continue at your own peril.

So, given captured raw image I blurred by known function PSF, how do we find the minimum value of J yielding the deconvolved image O that we are after?

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Optics, Spatial Resolution, USM

Chromatic Aberrations MTF Mapped

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A number of interesting insights come to light once one realizes that as far as the slanted edge method (of measuring  the Modulation Transfer Function of a Bayer CFA digital camera and lens from its raw data) is concerned it is as if it were dealing with identical images behind three color filters, each in their own separate, full resolution color plane:

CFA Sensor Frequency Domain Model
Figure 1. The Modulation Transfer Function of the three color planes can be measured separately directly in the raw data by open source  MTF Mapper

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Banding, Information Science, IQ, Perceptual, Processing, Quantization, Sensors, Sharpening, USM

Image Quality: Raising ISO vs Pushing in Conversion

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In the last few posts I have made the case that Image Quality in a digital camera is entirely dependent on the light Information collected at a sensor’s photosites during Exposure.  Any subsequent processing – whether analog amplification and conversion to digital in-camera and/or further processing in-computer – effectively applies a set of Information Transfer Functions to the signal  that when multiplied together result in the data from which the final photograph is produced.  Each step of the way can at best maintain the original Information Quality (IQ) but in most cases it will degrade it somewhat.

IQ: Only as Good as at Photosites’ Output

This point is key: in a well designed imaging system** the final image IQ is only as good as the scene information collected at the sensor’s photosites, independently of how this information is stored in the working data along the processing chain, on its way to being transformed into a pleasing photograph.  As long as scene information is properly encoded by the system early on, before being written to the raw file – and information transfer is maintained in the data throughout the imaging and processing chain – final photograph IQ will be virtually the same independently of how its data’s histogram looks along the way.

Continue reading Image Quality: Raising ISO vs Pushing in Conversion →