Low-quality image enhancement using visual attention

Abstract

Low quality images are often corrupted by artifacts and generally need to be heavily processed to become visually pleasing. We present a modified version of unsharp masking that is able to perform image smoothing, while not only preserving but also enhancing the salient details in images. The premise supporting the work is that biological vision and image reproduction share common principles. The key idea is to process the image locally according to topographic maps obtained from a neurodynamical model of visual attention. In this way, the unsharp masking algorithm becomes local and adaptive, enhancing the edges differently according to human perception. © 2007 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.