Improved rank conditioned median filter for removal of impulse noise from images

This paper presents an improved rank-conditioned median filter, with the ability of the median filter to remove the impulse noise and the rank conditioned median filter to preserve edges and fine image details. The center pixel that lies outside the trimming range after ranking in the rank-conditioned median algorithm may not be the corrupted pixel, but it may be a pixel on the edge or image detail and therefore, it is further verified if the central sample is a possible candidate for being an impulse by thresholding. The better performance of the new filter is demonstrated.