METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR THE REDUCTION OF ARTIFACTS IN DECOMPRESSED IMAGES USING MORPHOLOGICAL POST-FILTERING

An apparatus for post-processing of decompressed images having ringing artifacts identifies edges of the image such as may generate such artifacts and defines zones outside of those edges but conforming thereto in which ringing artifacts are to be expected. These zones may be modified according to a model of the human visual system and then filtered so as to reduce ringing artifacts. The filtered zones are spliced back into the image minimizing unnecessary modification of the image while reducing ringing artifacts.