There is high demand for quick digitization and subsequent image restoration of archived film records. Digitization is very urgent in many cases because various invaluable pieces of cultural heritage are stored on aging media. Only selected records can be reconstructed perfectly using painstaking manual or semi-automatic procedures. This paper aims to answer the question what are the quality requirements on the restoration process in order to obtain acceptably close visual perception of the digitally restored film in comparison to the original analog film copy. This knowledge is very important to preserve the original artistic intention of the movie producers. Subjective experiment with artificially distorted images has been conducted in order to answer the question what is the visual impact of common image distortions in digital cinema. Typical color and contrast distortions were introduced and test images were presented to viewers using digital projector. Based on the outcome of this subjective evaluation a system for objective assessment of image distortions has been developed and its performance tested. The system utilizes calibrated digital single-lens reflex camera and subsequent analysis of suitable features of images captured from the projection screen. The evaluation of captured image data has been optimized in order to obtain predicted differences between the reference and distorted images while achieving high correlation with the results of subjective assessment. The system can be used to objectively determine the difference between analog film and digital cinema images on the projection screen.

Date Published: 23 September 2014
PDF: 14 pages
Proc. SPIE 9217, Applications of Digital Image Processing XXXVII, 92170I (23 September 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2061016

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9217:
Applications of Digital Image Processing XXXVII
Andrew G. Tescher, Editor(s)