Simple statistics improve the quality of digital images

Simple statistical software designed for electron microscope images can be used to improve pictures of everything from cells to the surface of Mars. The quality of images from digital cameras is affected by variations in their digital light sensors. Variations in sensitivity and even broken pixels in the sensors are a natural consequence of the microscopic scale of their fabrication. Manufacturers correct these variations by blending them with information from neighbouring pixels, based on a one-off assessment of the performance of the sensor. This creates pictures that look good to the naked eye but do not accurately represent the fine details of the image. The new software, developed by researchers from Imperial College London and colleagues in the Netherlands, Germany and Brazil, can improve the reliability of pictures taken by a microscope camera. It determines the exact properties of each individual pixel, based on a statistical analysis of thousands of images, and adjusts the data captured by each pixel accordingly.