“Foxing” in vintage photographs: Detection and removal

In this paper a new algorithm to digitally restore vintage photographic prints affected by the “foxing” defect is proposed. The algorithm is composed of several automatic and consecutive steps where detection of damaged areas is coupled with removal methods. The restoration algorithms are based on an inpainting technique and on an additive/multiplicative model. The first one replaces the lost data; the second one fixes the defective area searching for optimal parameters around the damaged area. The obtained results show that the foxing spots are completely removed without producing significant artifacts.