ENHANCEMENT Image enhancement refers to any process by which visual quality of an image is improved.

Because there could be significant variations in acquired images due to varying lighting conditions, camera types, and so on, there are no set procedures to be adopted in image enhancement. Generally speaking, enhancement techniques are ad hoc in nature. For example, if original image lacks sharpness, suitable algorithm called unsharp masking can be designed so that subjective quality of original image is improved by increasing its sharpness without altering its other qualities. Impulse noise is also commonly referred to as salt and pepper noise. This type of noise is characterized by isolated pixels having values very different from their neighboring pixels. Parameter characterizing such noise is its density, i.e., fraction of number of pixels that are noisy. Denser impulse noise, harder it is to clean it. COMPRESSION Enhancement is not only type of digital processing available. Many time it is necessary to reduce amount of data contained in an image for efficient storage or transmission. corresponding image processing is known as image compression. In one such method original image can be restored completely, resulting in no loss of data. This class of algorithms falls under what is known as lossless compression. Alternatively, one can compress an image in such manner that some amount of information is irrecoverably lost in restored or reconstructed image, resulting in what is called lossy compression. Compression techniques are rooted in classical information theory. As rule of thumb, lossy compression results in larger reduction of data compared to lossless case. Of course, when we refer to an image compressed using lossy compression method, it is implied that decompressed image is quite useful. Otherwise, one can obtain an unlimited amount of compression at expense of image quality. If we allow larger compression artifacts will be even more visible. Thus, we can trade quality for higher compression when using lossy compression method. What we have just described applies to still image or single frame of image. More dynamic and interesting images are so-called sequence images or video images. Sequence of images, as in TV or movie, consists of number of consecutive frames that contain smooth motion or live action. Therefore, we have an additional dimension, namely temporal dimension, to exploit in reducing amount of data. Since change in consecutive frames in scene is small, it is not necessary to store or send all pixels in each and every frame. Instead, only pixels that are different from previous frame, for instance, are stored or transmitted. Hence large amount of compression is achieved in compressing video or movie. Amount of data contained in difference image is much smaller & therefore will result in reduction of data to be stored or transmitted. RESTORATION Image restoration refers to process by which one removes ill effect imposed on image during its acquisition. An image may be degraded either due to blurring caused by relative motion between camera and object or out of focusing or due to corruption by noise. Blurring is typically modeled as linear operation on image. Hence if we know priori exact linear operation due to camera motion, then we can undo it by its inverse operation. Hence restoration is also known as inverse filtering or deconvolution. Image Restoration is generally ill conditioned. It means that degraded image may not always be restored to its original condition. Since degrading process is not always known priori, one might have to devise procedure that is iterative in nature. In this procedure, one starts with given degraded image and iteratively improves quality of image. This procedure is referred to as blind deconvolution. COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY A fourth type of digital image processing arises in field of medical imaging. Noninvasive techniques are used to view trans-axial cross section of human body. X-rays are used for this purpose. However, single beam of Xray can only project line along its transmission path on to single point. Hence, multiple projections are obtained at different orientations of body part. Cross-sectional view is then constructed by processing whole set of projection data. This type of processing is known as computed tomography (CT). Quality of

reconstructed image gets better as number of projections increase or sensor spacing decreases corresponding to two cases. IMAGE ANALYSIS The categories of image processing just described belong to traditional discipline of electrical engineering. There is yet another category called image understanding or image analysis that typically falls under discipline of computer science. Image understanding, as name implies, is concerned with recognition and enumeration of objects in an image using computer methods. This requires that an image be first segmented into homogeneous regions followed by identification of each region with an object. simple segmentation procedure involves detecting object boundaries or edges. More involved tasks are encountered in biomedical imaging, e.g., counting blood cells. Complex algorithms are needed in human activity recognition in such applications as forensic medicine. This book deals with basic principles involved in processing images for different end results. In particular, it describes in detail image enhancement and image compression. Topic on image compression includes popular JPEG and MPEG standards based on both transform and wavelet domains. It further includes an exciting application of image compression to digital cinema.