Image super-resolution by estimating the enhancement weight of self example and external missing patches

Abstract

Image super-resolution (SR) is the process of generating a high-resolution (HR) image using one or more low-resolution (LR) inputs. Many SR methods have been proposed, but generating the small-scale structure of an SR image remains a challenging task. We hence propose a single-image SR algorithm that combines the benefits of both internal and external SR methods. First, we estimate the enhancement weights of each LR-HR image patch pair. Next, we multiply each patch by the estimated enhancement weight to generate an initial SR patch. We then employ a method to recover the missing information from the high-resolution patches and create that missing information to generate a final SR image. We then employ iterative back-projection to further enhance visual quality. The method is compared qualitatively and quantitatively with several state-of-the-art methods, and the experimental results indicate that the proposed framework provides high contrast and better visual quality, particularly for non-smooth texture areas.