A vector median deblurring filter for color image restoration

A new technique is described which couples median filtering and image deblurring techniques to filter noisy images without introducing defocusing side effects. To deal with colour images a vector median filtering procedure is proposed. Using this procedure a better edge preserving filter is obtained which does not introduce new colours. The deblurring operation is performed componentwise by fitting an ARMA model to the image. The AR part of the model estimates the image and the MA part estimates the blurring function. Finally, the MA part is inverted and applied to remove the blur introduced by the median filter.