A region-based algorithm for enhancement of images degraded by blocking effects

A new region-based method for removing blocking artifacts in block coded images is presented. The proposed algorithm segments the degraded image and each region obtained by the segmentation process is then low-pass filtered separately. This prevents blurring of edges because the low-pass filter is never applied across region boundaries. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm is comparable to other techniques at removing blocking artifacts, however, the undesired blurring introduced by the low-pass filter is significantly smaller.