Remove background text and noise from an image using image processing with OpenCV

Question

I have these images

For which I want to remove the text in the background. Only the captcha characters should remain(i.e K6PwKA, YabVzu).

Answer 1

Your code produces better results than this. Here, I set a threshold for upperb and lowerb values based on histogram CDF values and a threshold. Press ESC button to get next image.

This code is unnecessarily complex and needs to be optimized in various ways. Code can be reordered to skip some steps. I kept it as some parts may help others. Some existing noise can be removed by keeping contour with area above certain threshold. Any suggestions on other noise reduction method is welcome.

Similar easier code for getting 4 corner points for perspective transform can be found here,

Accurate corners detection?

Code Description:

• Original Image
• Median Filter (Noise Removal and ROI Identification)
• OTSU Thresholding
• Invert Image
• Use Inverted Black and White Image as Mask to keep mostly ROI part of original image
• Dilation for largest Contour finding

• Mark the ROI by drawing rectangle and corner points in original image

• Straighten the ROI and extract it

• Median Filter
• OTSU Thresholding
• Invert Image for mask
• Mask the straight image to remove most noise further to text
• In Range is used with lowerb and upperb values from histogram cdf as mentioned above to further reduce noise
• Maybe eroding the image at this step will produce somewhat acceptable result. Instead here that image is dilated again and used as a mask to get less noisy ROI from perspective transformed image.

Code:

## Press ESC button to get next image

import cv2
import cv2 as cv
import numpy as np


frame = cv2.imread('extra/c1.png')
#frame = cv2.imread('extra/c2.png')


## keeping a copy of original
print(frame.shape)
original_frame = frame.copy()
original_frame2 = frame.copy()


## Show the original image
winName = 'Original'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)



## Apply median blur
frame = cv2.medianBlur(frame,9)


## Show the original image
winName = 'Median Blur'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)


#kernel = np.ones((5,5),np.uint8)
#frame = cv2.dilate(frame,kernel,iterations = 1)



# Otsu's thresholding
frame = cv2.cvtColor(frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
ret2,thresh_n = cv.threshold(frame,0,255,cv.THRESH_BINARY+cv.THRESH_OTSU)
frame = thresh_n


## Show the original image
winName = 'Otsu Thresholding'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)




## invert color
frame = cv2.bitwise_not(frame)

## Show the original image
winName = 'Invert Image'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)


## Dilate image
kernel = np.ones((5,5),np.uint8)
frame = cv2.dilate(frame,kernel,iterations = 1)


##
## Show the original image
winName = 'SUB'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
img_gray = cv2.cvtColor(original_frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
cv.imshow(winName, img_gray & frame)
cv.waitKey(0)


## Show the original image
winName = 'Dilate Image'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)


## Get largest contour from contours
contours, hierarchy = cv2.findContours(frame, cv2.RETR_TREE, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)


## Get minimum area rectangle and corner points
rect = cv2.minAreaRect(max(contours, key = cv2.contourArea))
print(rect)
box = cv2.boxPoints(rect)
print(box)


## Sorted points by x and y
## Not used in this code
print(sorted(box , key=lambda k: [k[0], k[1]]))



## draw anchor points on corner
frame = original_frame.copy()
z = 6
for b in box:
    cv2.circle(frame, tuple(b), z, 255, -1)


## show original image with corners
box2 = np.int0(box)
cv2.drawContours(frame,[box2],0,(0,0,255), 2)
cv2.imshow('Detected Corners',frame)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()



## https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11627362/how-to-straighten-a-rotated-rectangle-area-of-an-image-using-opencv-in-python
def subimage(image, center, theta, width, height):
   shape = ( image.shape[1], image.shape[0] ) # cv2.warpAffine expects shape in (length, height)

   matrix = cv2.getRotationMatrix2D( center=center, angle=theta, scale=1 )
   image = cv2.warpAffine( src=image, M=matrix, dsize=shape )

   x = int(center[0] - width / 2)
   y = int(center[1] - height / 2)

   image = image[ y:y+height, x:x+width ]

   return image



## Show the original image
winName = 'Dilate Image'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)


## use the calculated rectangle attributes to rotate and extract it
frame = subimage(original_frame, center=rect[0], theta=int(rect[2]), width=int(rect[1][0]), height=int(rect[1][1]))
original_frame = frame.copy()
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)

perspective_transformed_image = frame.copy()



## Apply median blur
frame = cv2.medianBlur(frame,11)


## Show the original image
winName = 'Median Blur'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)


#kernel = np.ones((5,5),np.uint8)
#frame = cv2.dilate(frame,kernel,iterations = 1)



# Otsu's thresholding
frame = cv2.cvtColor(frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
ret2,thresh_n = cv.threshold(frame,0,255,cv.THRESH_BINARY+cv.THRESH_OTSU)
frame = thresh_n


## Show the original image
winName = 'Otsu Thresholding'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)



## invert color
frame = cv2.bitwise_not(frame)

## Show the original image
winName = 'Invert Image'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)


## Dilate image
kernel = np.ones((5,5),np.uint8)
frame = cv2.dilate(frame,kernel,iterations = 1)

##
## Show the original image
winName = 'SUB'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
img_gray = cv2.cvtColor(original_frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
frame = img_gray & frame
frame[np.where(frame==0)] = 255
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)





hist,bins = np.histogram(frame.flatten(),256,[0,256])

cdf = hist.cumsum()
cdf_normalized = cdf * hist.max()/ cdf.max()
print(cdf)
print(cdf_normalized)
hist_image = frame.copy()




## two decresing range algorithm
low_index = -1
for i in range(0, 256):
   if cdf[i] > 0:
      low_index = i
      break
print(low_index)

tol = 0
tol_limit = 20
broken_index = -1
past_val = cdf[low_index] - cdf[low_index + 1]
for i in range(low_index + 1, 255):
   cur_val = cdf[i] - cdf[i+1]
   if tol > tol_limit:
      broken_index = i
      break
   if cur_val < past_val:
      tol += 1
   past_val = cur_val

print(broken_index)




##
lower = min(frame.flatten())
upper = max(frame.flatten())
print(min(frame.flatten()))
print(max(frame.flatten()))

#img_rgb_inrange = cv2.inRange(frame_HSV, np.array([lower,lower,lower]), np.array([upper,upper,upper]))
img_rgb_inrange = cv2.inRange(frame, (low_index), (broken_index))
neg_rgb_image = ~img_rgb_inrange
## Show the original image
winName = 'Final'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, neg_rgb_image)
cv.waitKey(0)


kernel = np.ones((3,3),np.uint8)
frame = cv2.erode(neg_rgb_image,kernel,iterations = 1)
winName = 'Final Dilate'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
#cv.resizeWindow(winName, 800, 800)
cv.imshow(winName, frame)
cv.waitKey(0)


##
winName = 'Final Subtracted'
cv.namedWindow(winName, cv.WINDOW_NORMAL)
img2 = np.zeros_like(perspective_transformed_image)
img2[:,:,0] = frame
img2[:,:,1] = frame
img2[:,:,2] = frame
frame = img2
cv.imshow(winName, perspective_transformed_image | frame)
cv.waitKey(0)


##
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot(cdf_normalized, color = 'b')
plt.hist(hist_image.flatten(),256,[0,256], color = 'r')
plt.xlim([0,256])
plt.legend(('cdf','histogram'), loc = 'upper left')
plt.show()

1. Median Filter:

2. OTSU Threshold:

3. Invert:

4. Inverted Image Dilation:

5. Extract by Masking:

6. ROI points for transform:

7. Perspective Corrected Image:

8. Median Blur:

9. OTSU Threshold:

10. Inverted Image:

11. ROI Extraction:

12. Clamping:

13. Dilation:

14. Final ROI:

15. Histogram plot of step 11 image: