Image restoration after pixel binning in image sensors

A method was developed to restore degraded images to some extent after the pixel binning process in image sensors to improve the resolution. A pixel binning model was used to approximate the original un-binned image. Then, the least squares error criterion was used as a constraint to reconstruct the restored pixel values from the binning model. The technique achieves about a one-decibel increase in the peak signal-to-noise ratio compared with the original estimated image. The technique has good detail preservation performance as well as low computation load. Thus, this restoration technique provides valuable improvements in practical, real time image processing.