Patent ID: 8233205

Claim:
A method for use with a storage medium that holographically stores information, the method comprising the following steps: (a) generating a combined beam comprising a local oscillator portion and a reference pattern portion; (b) causing the combined beam to contact the storage medium to thereby generate a reconstructed data beam; (c) obtaining an image from the reconstructed data beam; (d) processing the obtained image to provide image contrast information; and (e) modifying the local oscillator portion of the combined beam based on the image contrast information; wherein the combined beam comprising a local oscillator portion and a reference pattern portion is formed using a format where a first portion of the format is used for forming the local oscillator portion and a second portion of the format is used for forming the reference pattern portion; wherein in generating the combined beam, the reference pattern portion comprises a reference pattern corresponding to a reference pattern used in holographically storing the information; and wherein modifying at least one pixel comprises: directing the at least one pixel to effect a phase shift in at least a portion of the combined beam based on the determined contrast for the at least one pixel.