Separating Reflections from Images by use of Independent Components Analysis

H. Farid and E.H. Adelson

Journal of the Optical Society of America, 16(9):2136-2145, 1999

The image of an object can vary dramatically depending on lighting, specularities, reflections and shadows. It is often advantageous to separate these incidental variations from the intrinsic aspects of an image. This paper describes a method for photographing objects behind glass and digitally removing the reflections off the glass leaving the image of the objects behind the glass intact. We describe the details of this method which employs simple optical techniques and independent components analysis (ICA) and show its efficacy with several examples.

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