Intelligent sharpness enhancement for video post-processing

Sharpness enhancement is one of the post-processing stages in the consumer electronics video chain that operates in an open-loop mode. Although adaptive behavior is possible, in general there is no feedback system aimed at maximizing perceived quality. In this paper we introduce a control system and metric for sharpness enhancement algorithms. We also discuss the options of implementing an internal or local control loop, i.e., to control the basic sharpness enhancement engine at the pixel or region level, and an external or global control loop for sharpness enhancement module.