Comparison of Denoising Algorithms for Demosacing Low Lighting Images Using CFA 2.0

Abstract

In modern digital cameras, the Bayer color filter array (CFA) has been widely used. It is also widely known as CFA 1.0. However, Bayer pattern is inferior to the red-green-blue-white (RGBW) pattern, which is also known as CFA 2.0, in low lighting conditions in which Poisson noise is present. It is well known that demosaicing algorithms cannot effectively deal with Poisson noise and additional denoising is needed in order to improve the image quality. In this paper, we propose to evaluate various conventional and deep learning based denoising algorithms for CFA 2.0 in low lighting conditions. We will also investigate the impact of the location of denoising, which refers to whether the denoising is done before or after a critical step of demosaicing. Extensive experiments show that some denoising algorithms can indeed improve the image quality in low lighting conditions. We also noticed that the location of denoising plays an important role in the overall demosaicing performance.