Using AviSynth To Fix Cell Phone Picture

[EpheMeroN]

My cell phone has the typical 1.3 megapixel cam and I took a photo the other day in bad lighting.

I've tried to brighten it myself via Google's Picasa but I'm no expert w/ level correction, and there's a lot of noise in the image - especially when brightened.

Can you guys please work your magic best you can? It's the only photo I have from that day. I'd like to brighten it and of course reduce the noise as much as possible that's present in the image. I'm not looking for a miracle... just want to print it out to a 4x6 on my photo printer!

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/9162/0106091708fw0.th.jpg (http://img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0106091708fw0.jpg)

[neuron2]

This is the best I can do given the amount of noise:

http://neuron2.net/misc/fixed.jpg

:)

[tetsuox]

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/823/28176620wa8.th.jpg (http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=28176620wa8.jpg)
Here's my attempt using a Photoshop noise reduction plugin + auto tone correction. That should give you something easy to work with if you want to increase brightness more, or apply a little sharpening. ;)

The noise can be reduced even more, but the image will end up plastic looking.

[scharfis_brain]

That's what I got after some tweaking with levels, curves and neatimage. (No AVISynth involved)

http://home.arcor.de/scharfis_brain/Untitled_filtered.jpg

[EpheMeroN]

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/823/28176620wa8.th.jpg (http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=28176620wa8.jpg)
Here's my attempt using a Photoshop noise reduction plugin + auto tone correction. That should give you something easy to work with if you want to increase brightness more, or apply a little sharpening. ;)

The noise can be reduced even more, but the image will end up plastic looking.

I like how yours turned out! Would you mind uploading it in a lossless format so I can edit it further? I think all it needs is a touch of brightening. Sharpening may help but it would increase the noise a lot don't you think?

[tetsuox]

I like how yours turned out! Would you mind uploading it in a lossless format so I can edit it further? I think all it needs is a touch of brightening. Sharpening may help but it would increase the noise a lot don't you think?

Here you go (I can't access imageshack atm) http://www.mediafire.com/?nr0cmbtmhfz

Yes, sharpening will increase the noise. It's all very subjective of course, I personally don't mind the cost of a bit more luma noise for a bit more sharpness but the chroma noise could be too much for example.

You could try the highpass filter method which newspapers sometimes use on 'bad' photos that they absolutely must use. There are some guides on the web that will tell you how to do it. If you don't have Photoshop, you can get Gimp, and get a highpass filter plugin for that.

There are also of course more hardcore methods of photo restoration which will require manual painting in of non-existent details, like hair for example :S

For those interested, I used NoiseNinja for the noise reduction.

[mikeytown2]

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/823/28176620wa8.th.jpg (http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=28176620wa8.jpg)
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/28176620wa8.jpg/1/w1280.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img222/28176620wa8.jpg/1/)
@tetsuox, thats very good noise removal... I wonder if there is some way to replicate that with open source software. For image brighting ImageMagick's 16bit -sigmoidal-contrast (http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#sigmoidal-contrast) is hard to beat.

convert 28176620wa8.jpg -sigmoidal-contrast 6,0% out.jpg
gives this
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/3627/outxa2.th.jpg (http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?image=outxa2.jpg)

Then using gimp's color balance
Midtones
10
-5
0
gives this
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/9910/out2if2.th.jpg (http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?image=out2if2.jpg)

All thats left if red eye removal which is easy to do in Gimp via Lab Color Components (channel A)
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7453/out3cq4.th.jpg (http://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?image=out3cq4.jpg)

[Sagekilla]

It could use some pepper noise removal though, that (to me anyway) is particularly distracting.

[tetsuox]

@tetsuox, thats very good noise removal... I wonder if there is some way to replicate that with open source software.

I haven't used Gimp for awhile mainly due to it's lack of 16-bit support as I now own a DSLR and shoot exclusively in 14-bit raws. For Gimp, iirc ufraw had a noise removal feature (relatively basic). You can also try GREYCstoration (http://www.greyc.ensicaen.fr/~dtschump/greycstoration/) as a plugin for Gimp. Sample images denoised here (http://cimg.sourceforge.net/greycstoration/demonstration.shtml). There was another that I used in the past but I don't remember what it was called. AFAIK there is no open-source or free NR plugin/tool that supports camera profiling/image profiling like the commercial ones.

[Archimedes]

1. Deblocked and denoised with TNLMeans:

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/572/0106091708fw01280x0960sf8.th.jpg (http://img98.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0106091708fw01280x0960sf8.jpg)

2. JPG-Illuminator:

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/7366/0106091708fw01280x0960jtp2.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0106091708fw01280x0960jtp2.jpg)

[krieger2005]

Source-Image is that one of scharfis_brain, since for my taste he brightened it best while retain much detail with only few noise. Used simpy Blur and Median-Blur with Sharpening. Mixed the Results with Masks in Photoshop together. E voila:

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/7899/79090708ld0.th.jpg (http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=79090708ld0.jpg)
BTW: It is not really a topic related to avisynth... For me Avisynth's power still are Video-Related. For Picture-Editing are "specialized" programs better...