Image processing

Image processing is in many cases concerned with taking one array of pixels as input and producing another array of pixels as output which in some way represents an improvement to the original array.

For example, this processing

• may remove noise,
• improve the contrast of the image,
• remove blurring caused by movement of the camera during image acquisition,
• it may correct for geometrical distortions caused by the lens.

We will not be considering every image processing technique in this section.
Many such techniques are dealt with in Professor Batchelor's companion course.
Many books, such as Gonzalez and Woods, are devoted to this subject
Image processing methods may be broadly divided into

Real space

methods -- which work by directly processing the input pixel array.

Fourier space

methods -- which work by firstly deriving a new representation of the input data by performing a Fourier transform, which is then processed, and finally, an inverse Fourier transform is performed on the resulting data to give the final output image.