Patent ID: 7643699

Claim:
A method of processing an input digital image, the method comprising: applying a function to a plurality of pixels in the input image, the function relating a noise statistic to pixel intensity values, wherein a local noise variance value is produced for each of the pixels as a function of the pixel intensity values; processing, using processor, each of the pixels with respect to its local noise variance value, including bilateral filtering and denoising the pixels using the local noise variance values, wherein a denoised output (y*(i)) is calculated according to y * ⁡ ( i ) = ⁢ 1 ∑ j ⁢ g ⁡ ( y ⁡ ( i ) - y ⁡ ( i - j ) ) · h ⁡ ( j ) ⁢ ∑ j ⁢ y ⁡ ( i - j ) · g ⁡ ( y ⁡ ( i - j ) - y ⁡ ( i ) ) · h ⁡ ( j ) where h(i) is a convolution kernel and g(y(i)−y(i−j)) is a photometric distance term used for selective denoising without blurring edges; and supplying a modified image based on the denoised pixels.