On The Application Of Log Compression and Enhanced Denoising In Contrast Enhancement Of Digital Radiography Images

Digital radiography (DR) is becoming popular for the point of care imaging in the recent past. To reduce the radiation exposure, controlled radiation based on as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) principle is employed and this results in low contrast images. To address this issue, post-processing algorithms such as the Multiscale Image Contrast Amplification (MUSICA) algorithm can be used to enhance the contrast of DR images even with a low radiation dose. In this study, a modification of the MUSICA algorithm is investigated to determine the potential for further contrast improvement specifically for DR images. The conclusion is that combining log compression and its inverse at the appropriate stage with a multi-stage MUSICA and denoising is very promising. The proposed method resulted in an average of 66.5 % increase in the mean contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) for the test images considered.