Patent ID: 8014574

Claim:
A character noise eliminating apparatus for eliminating a character noise which is an atypical shaped background noise from a fingerprint or a palm print image, the apparatus comprising: a character noise area detecting device for detecting a character noise area, which is an area corresponding to the character noise, from the image; a density conversion area layer determining device for setting a plurality of density conversion area layers inside and outside the character noise area; a density converting device for, as a reference area of a target pixel, setting a neighboring pixel group within the same density conversion area layer as the density conversion area layer to which the target pixel belongs, and generating a density converted image by applying local image enhancement; an image enhancing device for generating an enhanced image by applying a local image enhancement to the image; and an image synthesizing device for generating a synthetic image by synthesizing the enhanced image and the density converted image taking a smaller density value among two density values of the enhanced image and the density converted image as the density value of a pixel in the density conversion area layer, and taking the density value of the enhanced image as the density value of a pixel outside the density conversion area layer; wherein the density converting device and the image enhancing device perform the local image enhancement in a same matter.