Restoration of old document images using different color spaces restoration of old document images

An obstacle in old document interpretation comes from the lack of image quality. Old documents frequently appear with digitization errors, uneven background, bleed-through effect. A new approach based on morphological color operators to restore the color text is presented. The morphological tools are based on three color spaces, HSI well known in morphological processes, YCrCb and YIQ rarely used in morphological procedures. Experimental results carried onto 100 old documents have proven that using YCrCb and YIQ is as effective as using HSI to recover ancient texts in uneven and foxed background images, without presenting problems in hue ordination.