Objective evaluation of images reconstructed from digital in-line Fresnel holograms by using coherent background elimination

Quality of images reconstructed from in-line Fresnel holograms using elimination of a coherent background is quantitatively studied through computer simulation and experiment. The coherent background is digitally calculated by averaging an intensity of a recorded hologram. The results show that in spite of the fact that virtual image is still intact, the background elimination can resolve images with quality comparable to the phase-shifting technique.