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Community Expert
June 23, 2012
Open for Voting

P: FFT-based pattern remover (Filter/Brush/Tool)

  • June 23, 2012
  • 37 replies
  • 8416 views

A filter that automatically removes/reduces repeating patterns like raster patterns or paper texture.It would be of great help for anyone who ever encounters a scanned image with a repeating pattern (typical for image restoration work or when the only source for an image is a printed copy).Before/after example (click to see gif animation): How to make such a filter: This can be done by doing a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to split an image into frequency components. The frequencies that make up repeating patterns will stand out and can be removed (today we do this manually with a black brush, but a filter can remove the "peaks" automatically). And inverse FFT is then performed to transform the image back. This entire process can be automated into one step; perhaps just with a slider to let the user choose how aggressively the filter removes frequencies.I posted a detailed explanation here with a short tutorial on how this is done step by step.Note that this only works on a single channel, so normally you would just bother to do this on the Luminosity component. Filtering each RGB-channel separately can also be done. I will leave that up to you Adobe... 😉

37 replies

The Arts Doc
Participant
April 30, 2015
How do we lobby Adobe to get an FFT filter for the Mac. I see a FFT-Brush in my Tool Preset Manager but it does not seem to do anything.
The Arts Doc
Participant
April 29, 2015
Yes indeed. A Mac version cannot be that great of a stretch. I am very frustrated by this lack of Mac development of an FFT filter. Who wants to step up to the plate and make this happen?
Community Expert
July 26, 2013
I've made an attempt at automatic the FFT pattern removal process using actions in Photoshop CC:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/soft...

Not quite as good as when I do it manually yet, but with some tweaking it could be just as good.

Example on color image:

Inspiring
June 16, 2013
The number of requests I have received for a Mac version of the 4N6site plug-ins is actually surprizingly small...
The number of people that included a retina-display MacBook pro to motivate me was even smaller!

--
Edit: Thanks, am glad you enjoy them!
Community Expert
June 3, 2013
Actually, I used the version modified to work on 64-bit images (the one on 4N6site.com is only 32-bit). Found here:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/soft...

What I miss is an OSX-compatible version (and ofc. for Adobe to make a fully automated "pattern/raster remover" based on FFT - the point of this thread).

Perhaps 4N6site is up for the job instead? I'm sure you'd make some really good friends in the retouching and image processing communities. ;)

--
Edit: Oh, just wanted to say, thanks for the neat plugins! 😄
Inspiring
June 3, 2013
Excellent demonstrations of the Fourier transform plug-in, and great results. This plug-in comes from the 4N6site.com website.
Currently the website is aimed at forensic scientists but the plug-ins are at least as useful in photo restoration and retouching. Removal of stains, ink, discolorations and silvering can be done with the color deconvolution plug-in (examples).
For perspective manipulation and ligning up warped images there is the warping plug-in (examples), and for the repeating patterns there is the mentioned Fourier transform plug-in (examples).

Happy photo restoring!
Community Expert
June 24, 2012
Example of this done to an image with a raster pattern:

(click to see before/after. Healing brush used to clean up some damage.)

Another example: This is just the FFT-filter, and I automated it using actions (with the help Threshold to find the "peaks"). Can't make it fully automated with actions yet though, but it can greatly speed things up until someone makes a proper filter.

(click to see before/after)

I think such a filter could generate a little "wow!" when demoed... ;)

Edit:
Some more examples and a downloadable plugin for doing the transform (but not the cleanup):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6795661/4N6si...