Replacement of Image Patches with Rugged Soft Boundary Using Texture Synthesis

An image inpainting technique is proposed to improve quality of photographs taken under poor weather conditions. Pale and gloomy sky is first replaced with more pleasant looking blue sky and white clouds. Transition regions near complicated boundaries are modified using a texture synthesis method that makes the sky and ground objects grow towards each other along normal directions obtained from the general trend of the boundary. This produces retouched pictures with a natural appearance