Image enhancement by edge-preserving filtering

Image enhancement is useful when the details in an image are lost due to various reasons. It is common to subtract a mask from a given image to enhance the details. The trick is how to obtain a good mask. We describe here how an edge-preserving filter can be used to generate a mask which is smooth over areas with fine details, yet preserving most of the edges. Experiments with real images show that our scheme is very effective.< >