Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

  • Reviews
  • Recommended Cameras & Gear
  • Learn Photography
  • Contact
  • About
  • Subscribe

MIT Researchers Develop Way to Automatically Remove Reflections from Photos Taken Through Windows

May 11, 2015 By Eric Reagan

MIT Window Reflection Removal

If you’ve ever shot a scenic photo from an airplane window or a hotel room window, then you will appreciate this new digital imaging breakthrough. Researchers at MIT have developed a new algorithm that can automatically remove reflections from photos shot through windows. 

While there are certainly ways to reduce or eliminate reflections with a carefully planned shot, many of those casual shots through a window are simply opportunistic and would otherwise simply be missed if not captured with a reflection. Moreover, plenty of smartphone or casual camera users have no inclination to put in the required effort (however minimal it might be) to reduce reflections.

The algorithm relies on images that contain two reflections from double-paned windows or from very thick windows. It essentially uses the image data from the two reflections to understand what should not be part of the image and then removes it.

Without the extra information provided by the duplicate reflection, the problem of reflection removal is virtually insoluble, Shih explains. “You have an image from outdoor and another image from indoor, and what you capture is the sum of these two pictures,” he says. “If A+B is equal to C, then how will you recover A and B from a single C? That’s mathematically challenging.  We just don’t have enough constraints to reach a conclusion.” –MIT News

When this will arrive in your smartphone’s camera software or as a Photoshop feature, however, remains to be seen.

[MIT News via Gizmodo]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: algorithm, cameras, MIT, reflection, research, tech

 

Trackbacks

  1. What else is new: firmware updates, service advisories and more | Photo Rumors says:
    May 13, 2015 at 11:55 am

    […] MIT researchers develop way to automatically remove reflections from photos taken through […]

Support Photography Bay


Recent Posts

  • Reader Photos Roundup: March 26, 2023
  • WD 22TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive Now In Stock
  • Reader Photos Roundup: March 19, 2023
  • Computational Photography & AI: Where Do We Go From Here?
  • Reader Photos Roundup: January 15, 2023

Pages

  • 2022 Black Friday Camera and Photo Deals
  • About
  • Camera and Photo Deals Newsletter
  • Canon 1D X
  • Canon 1Ds Mark IV
  • Canon 5D Mark III
  • Canon Rebel T4i
  • Contact
  • Disclosures
  • DSLRs
  • How to Subscribe
  • Learn Photography
  • NAB 2016 Live Blog
  • Nikon D4
  • Nikon D800
  • Photography Laws
  • Recommended Cameras & Accessories
  • Reviews
  • Sony Alpha A77

Copyright © 2023 | Photography Bay