Reconstructing arbitrarily focused images from two differently focused images using linear filters

We present a novel filtering method for reconstructing an all-in-focus image or an arbitrarily focused image from two images that are focused differently. The method can arbitrarily manipulate the degree of blur of the objects using linear filters without segmentation. The filters are uniquely determined from a linear imaging model in the Fourier domain. An effective and accurate blur estimation method is developed. The simulation results show that the accuracy and computational time of the proposed method are improved compared with the previous iterative method and that the effects of blur estimation error on the quality of the reconstructed image are very small. The method performs well for real images acquired without visible artifacts.