A simple and robust algorithm for the detection of multidirectional scratch from digital images

Over time, old films and pictures are eroded and often get corrupted with physical scratches. Digitization of these physically corrupted films lead to the presence of various scratch marks and aberrations oriented along multiple directions in the digitized image. Detection of these scratches for subsequent restoration is a rather difficult task because of the sensitiveness to noise and interference of background contour textures. To address this problem, we propose a highly robust and real time spatial scratch detection algorithm for static images. We deal with the more potent problem of detecting scratches in images regardless of orientation, color or shape by coupling binary detection with Hough Transformation and image rotation. Unavailability of temporal information makes such detection even more challenging. Experimental results suggest the effectiveness of our proposed method keeping in consideration computational time complexity constraints.