Blotch Detection and Removal in Old Film Sequences

Old movies are often corrupted by randomly located blotches and scratches. In this paper were present an efficient method for detection and removal of these distortions. The presented method is composed of two separate steps: the detection process and the restoration process. In the detection process, blotch locations are detected through global motion segmentation, the sequential approach to motion segmentation, a robust model-fit criterion and so on, we form the algorithm for the algorithm for the global motion segmentation tuned to the blotch detection problem. In the restoration process, the missing data of the detected blotch areas are temporally extrapolated from the corresponding image areas at the preceding or the succeeding image frame with considering the global motion segmentation results. We apply the presented method to moving image sequences distorted by artificial blotches. The method works very well and provides a subjective improvement of picture quality.