Image blind deblurring using an adaptive patch prior

Abstract

Image blind deblurring uses an estimated blur kernel to obtain an optimal restored original image with sharp features from a degraded image with blur and noise artifacts. This method, however, functions on the premise that the kernel is estimated accurately. In this work, we propose an adaptive patch prior for improving the accuracy of kernel estimation. Our proposed prior is based on local patch statistics and can rebuild low-level features, such as edges, corners, and junctions, to guide edge and texture sharpening for blur estimation. Our prior is a nonparametric model, and its adaptive computation relies on internal patch information. Moreover, heuristic filters and external image knowledge are not used in our prior. Our method for the reconstruction of salient step edges in a blurry patch can reduce noise and over-sharpening artifacts. Experiments on two popular datasets and natural images demonstrate that the kernel estimation performance of our method is superior to that of other state-of-the-art methods.