Repairing Artifacts and Cosmetic Defects
Cosmetic repair tools are used to correct blemishes and other artifacts in images. The available tools are listed below both by defect type and command name.
Isolated hot or cold pixels: Create Pixel Mask, Apply Pixel Mask, Interactive Repair, Clean Image Set.
Residual hot or cold pixels that are not corrected by removing the dark current: Create Pixel Mask, Apply Pixel Mask, Interactive Repair, Clean Image Set.
Hot columns and Cold Traps: Blemish Mask Editor, Apply Blemish Mask.
Defect clusters larger than 1 pixel in area: Blemish Mask Editor, Apply Blemish Mask.
Cosmic rays and ionizing radiation events: Clean Image Set, Cosmic Ray Filter, Median Filter.
Stars that interfere with photometric measurements: Star Removal package.
In addition, when several images exist of the same field of view, several methods may be used to reject artifacts and repair some of the larger cosmetic defects when the images are combined.
Apply Pixel Mask repairs isolated pixels using coordinates loaded from a file containing x,y positions of the bad pixels. Use this for repairing pixels that always are located at the same coordinates, such as hot or cold pixels.
Apply Blemish Mask repairs lines and rectangular regions of pixels that are always located at the same coordinates, such as hot columns, cold traps, and blemishes larger than 1 pixel in area.
Blemish Mask Editor creates and edits a blemish mask, which is a text-based description of blemish locations.
Clean Image Set detects ands, optionally, repairs transient bad points and regions which vary in position, such as cosmic ray and ionizing radiation events, as well as poorly corrected hot pixels.
Create Pixel Mask is used to create a pixel mask by detecting isolated pixels that are very high or very low.
Interactive Repair provides a pixel zapping tool used to repair pixels by interactively marking them on an image.
Pixel Mask Editor creates and edits a pixel mask, which is a text-based description of x,y locations of bad pixels.
Cosmic Ray Filter automatically detects and repairs isolated pixels and small clusters of hot pixels as are often caused by cosmic rays and ionizing radiation.
Star Removal is used to remove interfering point sources, such as stars or specular highlight points from an image.