Patent ID: 8351696

Claim:
A method for replacing defective pixels in a digital color image, each pixel including data in at least two color channels, the method comprising: determining whether each pixel has defective data in a selected color channel and, if so, selecting that pixel; for the selected pixel, determining whether a first reference color channel characterized by having non-defective data exists; for each selected pixel having the first reference color channel characterized by having non-defective data, correcting the defective data by: defining a group of neighboring pixels surrounding the selected pixel; for each of m neighboring pixels in the group that have both non-defective data in the selected color channel and non-defective data in the reference color channel, computing a sum of the differences between the non-defective data in the selected color channel and the non-defective data in the first reference color channel; adding the sum of the differences divided by m to the non-defective data value from the first reference color channel to obtain a substitution data value; and substituting the substitution data value for the defective data.