Patent ID: 7466873

Claim:
An artifact removal and quality assurance method for digital images, said method comprising: scanning a document comprising a printed page; deriving input digital image data that define the page in terms of a plurality of input pixels; segmenting the input digital image data into a plurality of discrete components each defined by a group of one or more input pixels that are spatially grouped together and that relate to a common content type of the input digital image data; classifying each discrete component as either an information component or a noise component; generating and displaying to a user an information component image defined by said information components without any noise components; generating and displaying to the user a noise component image defined by said noise components without any information components, said noise component image displayed separate from but simultaneously with said information component image; receiving quality assurance input data from the user by which the user selects at least one improperly classified component based upon the user's visual inspection of the information component image and the noise component image; reclassifying the at least one improperly classified component selected by the user from an information component to a noise component or vice versa; regenerating and simultaneously but separately displaying the information component image and the noise component image based upon the quality assurance input data to account for the at least one reclassified component so that the at least one reclassified component is moved as a unit in real time as viewed by the user from an original location in the information component image to a corresponding location in the noise component image or vice versa; saving the regenerated information component image; and, saving the regenerated noise component image separate from but associated with the regenerated information component image.