IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND PROGRAM

• Main Authors: HANDA MASAKI, TAKAHASHI HIROAKI, ASAI HARUKA, MITSUNAGA TOMOO, SHIBATA YASUSHI, YOSHIMURA MAKOTO
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 28.07.2014
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; PHYSICS; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To generate an image having had noise reduction and dynamic range expansion processes applied thereto by a sequential synthesizing process in which successively photographed images under different exposure conditions are employed.SOLUTION: Successively photographed images under different exposure conditions are inputted, constituent pixels of the input image and an intermediate composite image are classified into a noise pixel, an effective pixel, and a saturated pixel, and a pixel-unit synthesis processing method is determined according to a combination of the pixel classification result of a corresponding pixel. When corresponding pixels of the input image and/or the intermediate composite image are the effective pixel, a 3DNR process is applied; when corresponding pixels of both are the noise pixel, the pixel value of the intermediate composite image is output directly as is; when corresponding pixels of one of the two are the saturated pixel and the other is the noise pixel, 3DNR process is applied, or the pixel value of the intermediate composite image is outputted.