Patent ID: 7710473

Claim:
A smear-correcting device that corrects a smear of an image signal from a CCD imaging device, the CCD imaging device comprising a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements including a smear-correcting photoelectric conversion element, the smear-correcting device comprising: a determining section that determines whether a smear component is contained in an image signal from each of the photoelectric conversion elements other than the smear-correcting photoelectric conversion element, based on a corresponding smear-correcting signal that is an image signal from the smear-correcting photoelectric conversion element corresponding to the each of the photoelectric conversion elements; a smear-correcting section that subtracts the corresponding smear-correcting signal from the image signal determined to contain the smear component to correct a smear of the image signal; and an output section that outputs an image signal, wherein when the determining section determines that the image signal contains a smear component, the output section outputs the image signal after the smear-correcting section corrects a smear of the image signal, and when the determining section determines that the image signal does not contains the smear component, the output section outputs the image signal without smear correction; a plurality of smear-correcting photoelectric conversion elements corresponding to each of the photoelectric conversion elements, and an averaging section that calculates an average value over a plurality of corresponding smear-correcting signals form the plurality of the smear-correcting photoelectric conversion elements, wherein the determining section determines whether the image signal from the each of the photoelectric conversion elements contains a smear component when the average value is greater than a threshold; a signal generating section that generates a smear-correcting signal for correcting a smear component of the image signal based on the average value when the determining section determines that the image signal contains a smear component, wherein only when the determining section determines that the image signal contains the smear component, the smear correcting section correct a smear of the image signal based on the smear-correcting signal, wherein the signal generating section includes: a coring-subtracting section that subtracts a coring values from the average value to output a coring-subtracted value; a limit circuit that compares the coring-subtracted value with a limit value, wherein when the coring-subtracted value is greater than the limit value, the limit circuit suppresses the output to a suppressed value, and when the coring-subtracted value is smaller than the limit value, the limit circuit outputs the coring-subtracted value; and a gain multiplying section that multiplies a gain value with the suppressed value or the coring-subtracted value from the limit circuit to output the smear-correcting signal.