Image restoration by adaptive-neighborhood noise subtraction

A new algorithm for image restoration in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise is presented. This algorithm is based on a new, adaptive method to estimate the additive noise. The basic idea in this technique is to identify uniform structures or objects in the image by use of an adaptive neighborhood and to estimate the noise and the signal content in these areas separately. The noise is then subtracted selectively from the seed pixel of the adaptive neighborhood, and the process is repeated at every pixel in the image. The algorithm is compared with the adaptive two-dimensional least-mean-squares and the adaptive rectangular-window least-mean-squares algorithms for noise suppression. The results from the application of these algorithms to synthesized images and natural scenes are presented along with mean-squared-error measures. The new algorithm performs better than the other two methods both in terms of visual presentation and mean-squared error.