Patent ID: 8913842

Claim:
An image processing method comprising: binarizing, for a notice pixel in an image signal, luminance values of a range of pixels surrounding the notice pixel to generate a binarized pattern; comparing the binarized pattern with each of a plurality of predetermined patterns organized into a plurality of groups each associated with a different edge-direction smoothing filter, and outputting either information indicating one of the groups to which a pattern that matches said binarized pattern belongs or information indicating that no matched patterns exist; determining a maximum of differences between a value of the notice pixel and respective values of each of the notice pixel's neighboring pixels in said image signal; applying a median filter and each of said edge-direction smoothing filters to each pixel of said image signal; selecting an output of said median filter for the notice pixel as an intermediate output when the determined maximum difference is larger than a predetermined threshold, and selecting the value of the notice pixel in said image signal as the intermediate output when the determined maximum difference is equal to or smaller than said predetermined threshold; when the outputted information indicates that no matched patterns exist for the binarized pattern, selecting the intermediate output as output data for the notice pixel; and when the outputted information indicates one of the groups to which the pattern that matches the binarized pattern belongs, selecting the filtering result of the edge-direction smoothing filter associated with the group indicated by the outputted information as the output data for the notice pixel.