Patent Document ID: 20110096987
Application ID: 12983475
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for providing a noise-reduced value for a color pixel from a digital image having panchromatic pixels and color pixels, comprising: a. providing a first image having sparsely sampled panchromatic pixels and color pixels corresponding to at least two color photoresponses; b. interpolating the panchromatic pixels to provide a full-resolution panchromatic image; and c. providing a noise-reduced value for a particular color pixel in the first image, by: i. selecting a neighborhood of color pixels surrounding and including the particular color pixel, each selected color pixel having a value and having the same color photoresponse as the particular color pixel; ii. selecting a neighborhood of panchromatic pixels from the full-resolution panchromatic image, each selected panchromatic pixel having a value and being associated by location with a color pixel in the selected neighborhood of color pixels; and iii. using the values of the pixels from the selected neighborhoods of color and panchromatic pixels to provide the noise reduced value for the particular color pixel.