A no reference perceptual blur quality metric in the DCT domain

Blind objective metrics to automatically quantify perceived image quality degradation introduced by blur, is highly beneficial for current digital imaging systems. We present, in this paper, a perceptual no reference blur assessment metric developed in the frequency domain. As blurring affects specially edges and fine image details, that represent high frequency components of an image, the main idea turns on analysing, perceptually, the impact of blur distortion on high frequencies using the Discrete Cosine Transform DCT and the Just noticeable blur concept JNB relying on the Human Visual System. Comprehensive testing demonstrates the proposed Perceptual Blind Blur Quality Metric (PBBQM) good consistency with subjective quality scores as well as satisfactory performance in comparison with both the representative non perceptual and perceptual state-of-the-art blind blur quality measures.