An effective edge--directed frequency filter for removal of aliasing in upsampled images

TL;DR

This paper introduces a frequency-based, edge-directed filtering method to effectively remove aliasing artifacts from upsampled images, enhancing visual quality while preserving image details.

Contribution

The proposed method uniquely combines frequency filtering with edge directionality to selectively reduce aliasing without blurring image details.

Findings

Improves visual quality of upsampled images

Preserves sharpness of image details

Effective as a post-processing step

Abstract

Raster images can have a range of various distortions connected to their raster structure. Upsampling them might in effect substantially yield the raster structure of the original image, known as aliasing. The upsampling itself may introduce aliasing into the upsampled image as well. The presented method attempts to remove the aliasing using frequency filters based on the discrete fast Fourier transform, and applied directionally in certain regions placed along the edges in the image. As opposed to some anisotropic smoothing methods, the presented algorithm aims to selectively reduce only the aliasing, preserving the sharpness of image details. The method can be used as a post--processing filter along with various upsampling algorithms. It was experimentally shown that the method can improve the visual quality of the upsampled images.