Image denoising using sparse representation classification and non-subsampled shearlet transform

In this paper, an image denoising method is proposed which uses sparse un-mixing by variable splitting and augmented Lagrangian (SUnSAL) classifier in the non-subsampled shearlet transform (NSST) domain. To this aim, the noisy image is decomposed into various scales and directional components using the NSST and then the feature vector for a pixel is constituted by the spatial regularity in the NSST domain. Subsequently, the NSST detail coefficients are labeled as edge-related coefficients or noise-related ones by using the SUnSAL classifier. The noisy coefficients of the NSST subbands are then denoised by the shrink method, which uses the adaptive Bayesian threshold for denoising. Finally, the inverse NSST transform is applied to the denoised coefficients. Our experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach improves the image quality in terms of both subjective and objective inspections, compared with some other state-of-the-art denoising techniques.