Edge preserved image enhancement using adaptive fusion of images denoised by wavelet and curvelet transform

In this paper, a novel approach is proposed which utilizes features of wavelet and curvelet transform, separately and adaptively, in ‘homogeneous’, ‘non-homogeneous’ and ‘neither homogeneous nor non-homogeneous’ regions, which are identified by variance approach. The edgy information that could not be retained by wavelet approach is extracted back from its residue by denoising it with curvelet transform. This extracted information is used as edge structure information (ESI) for fusing offshore regions of denoised images obtained by usage of wavelet and curvelet transform. The result of the image enhanced by such spatially adaptive fusion technique shows the improvement in the preservation of the edgy information. It also yields better smoothness in background (homogeneous region or non-edgy region) due to the removal of fuzzy edges developed during the denoising process by the curvelet transform.