Abstract: The present invention provides a system for image-capturing devices, such as scanners, to accurately identify defects in objects. The objects can be the physical images to be captured or elements of the image-capturing devices such as the platen and mirrors. The image-capturing devices can then use this defect information to remove defects from captured images. The invention teaches an advantageous arrangement of illumination and sensor elements to record defect data at an angle roughly equal to the angle at which light is directed to an object, i.e. where the angle of reflection roughly equals the angle of incidence. Light reflected from surface defects has a wider diffusion and thus a lower amplitude than light reflected from the surface of the object itself. Accordingly, this characteristic can be utilized to identify defect information.

Abstract: One aspect of the invention is a method for altering defects in a digital image. At least a first pixel of a first channel of a digital image is filtered using digital circuitry to produce a filtered pixel by averaging the intensity of the first pixel and a plurality of additional pixels in the neighborhood of the first pixel. At least one of the pixels is weighted in response to the intensity value of at least one pixel in a defect channel associated with the digital image. A corrected digital image is produced using the digital circuitry in response to the filtered pixel and the first channel of the digital image.

Abstract: During electronic film development, an area of conventional photographic film is scanned several times using a single scanning station, and at each subsequent time this scanned area is advanced incrementally along the film with multiple levels of overlap with previous scans. The new image scanned at each new time is aligned to an accumulating image that has been extrapolated to the image at the new time, and then the new image is added to the accumulating image in parametric summations that allow an image to be interpolated to any time free of seams where the scans overlap. The invention further teaches a method of steering the alignment by warping the leading edge of the alignment, and a registration method of aligning multiple images that takes advantage of known fixed alignments between images.

Abstract: Surface defects in a reflection scan of a print made with visible light are corrected by using a scan of the print made with infrared light. In accordance with the present invention, surface defects in a reflection scan of an image consisting of pixels made with visible light are corrected by using a scan of the image consisting of pixels made with infrared light. This correction of surface defects is preformed by first establishing for each pixel an upper and lower bound for defect intensity based on the infrared record. The corresponding visible pixel is then corrected by subtracting the combination of upper and lower bound resulting in a corrected pixel.

Abstract: A single pass scanner having a trilinear array, a source of white light, filters of the three primary colors and a separate source of infrared light is used in various methods of removing medium-based defects from a scanned film image. The method generates an infrared channel in addition to the common visible channels by covering the parallel rows of sensors in the trilinear array respectively with a red, green and blue filter to create the three color channels. Normally, each of the three color filters also passes infrared light, which is removed by filters external to the sensors. In a specific embodiment, interstitial in time between two visible light scans, the sensor is exposed to infrared light for a single scan. As the trilinear array sweeps across an image in time and spatial synchronization with the exposing lights, at least two visible channels and an infrared channel are generated.

Abstract: Recovering the dye image on film in electronic film development following a latent holding stage obviates the problem common in prior art electronic film development of film image destruction. Recovery of the image is accomplished using a developing agent containing couplers to form a dye image. These dyes do not affect the infrared scans of the image. Upon complete development of the dye image, further dye formation is halted by the application of a coupler blocking agent, while silver development and electronic scanning may continue or halt. After halting dye formation, the film is stable for an arbitrary time in a latent stage and may be dried and stored. Following this latent stage, silver is removed from the film with a bleach-fix leaving a conventionally usable film image.

Abstract: Surface defects in a reflection scan of a print made with visible light are corrected by using a scan of the print made with infrared light. This correction of surface defects is performed by controlling the intensity of defect detail in the infrared record by multiplying that defect detail by a gain. The gain varies for each region of the image as a function of the brightness of the image in that region. The gain approaches unity for white areas of the image, drops toward zero for darker areas, and approaches a small negative number for black areas of the image. The gain-multiplied defect detail is then subtracted from the visible image to create the corrected image free of the surface defects.

Abstract: Recovering the dye image on film in electronic film development following a latent holding stage obviates the problem common in prior art electronic film development of film image destruction. Recovery of the image is accomplished using a developing agent containing couplers to form a dye image. These dyes do not affect the infrared scans of the image. Upon complete development of the dye image, further dye formation is halted by the application of a coupler blocking agent, while silver development and electronic scanning may continue or halt. After halting dye formation, the film is stable for an arbitrary time in a latent stage and may be dried and stored. Following this latent stage, silver is removed from the film with a bleach-fix leaving a conventionally usable film image.

Abstract: Surface defects in a reflection scan of a print made with visible light are corrected by using a scan of the print made with infrared light. This correction of surface defects is performed by controlling the intensity of defect detail in the infrared record by multiplying that defect detail by a gain. The gain varies for each region of the image as a function of the brightness of the image in that region. The gain approaches unity for white areas of the image, drops toward zero for darker areas, and approaches a small negative number for black areas of the image. The gain-multiplied defect detail is then subtracted from the visible image to create the corrected image free of the surface defects.

Abstract: In electronic film development, a film is scanned, using light, multiple times during development. The light is reflected from an emulsion containing milky undeveloped silver halide embedded with developing grains. The undeveloped halide layer has a finite depth over which photons from a light source scatter backward. This depth is within the range of the coherency length of infrared sources commonly used in electronic film development, causing coherency speckle noise in the scanned image. A prescan made after the emulsion swells, but before the silver grains develop, normalizes subsequent scans, pixel by pixel, to cancel coherency speckle and other defects.

Abstract: Recovering the dye image on film in electronic film development following a latent holding stage obviates the problem common in prior art electronic film development of film image destruction. Recovery of the image is accomplished using a developing agent containing couplers to form a dye image. These dyes do not affect the infrared scans of the image. Upon complete development of the dye image, further dye formation is halted by the application of a coupler blocking agent, while silver development and electronic scanning may continue or halt. After halting dye formation, the film is stable for an arbitrary time in a latent stage and may be dried and stored. Following this latent stage, silver is removed from the film with a bleach-fix leaving a conventionally usable film image.

Abstract: An improved developer application method and apparatus for use in electronic film development, wherein the developer is applied to a photographic film using controlled, aerial deposition of one or more stream(s) of droplets of one or more developer agents or developer components such that the droplets adhere to a targeted region of the film, rather than run off, and chemically react to allow scanning of a latent image in the film as it moves through an electronic film development scan mechanism.