Automated Enhancement of Faded Palm Leaf Manuscripts To Restore Text Legibility

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Computer Vision and Image

Understanding
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cviu
Automated Enhancement of Faded Palm Leaf Manuscripts to

Restore Text Legibility
Bipin Nair B. J.a, N. Shobha Rania*, Peeta Basa Patib
a
Department of Computer Science, Amrita School of Arts and Sciences, Mysuru, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India
b
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India
bj_bipinnair@my.amrita.edu, n_shobharani@my.amrita.edu, bp_peeta@my.amrita.edu
Abstract
Many times, due to fading of the text strokes, the content present may get misread leading to a completely different interpretation
of the knowledge in palm leafs due to poor text legibility. An accurate threshold evaluation technique is essential for high quality
image legibility restoration. In this work, we propose a faded text stroke recovery threshold for text legibility enhancement of
palm leaf manuscripts using the HSV space. Faded text recovery threshold is the most critical indicators for slicing the intensity
level range of faded palm leaf manuscripts. The proposed method's simplicity lies in establishing the sliced intensity level range
through which an enhanced image is obtained. Performance analysis is conducted using no-reference metrics over five
performance grading scales towards proposed faded datasets of palm leaf manuscripts. From comparison study with state-of-the-
art methods, results reveal that the proposed technique provides reliable outcomes in case of fading text recovery.
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Palm leaf manuscript analysis; faded text recovery; thresholding, ancient; historical, degradation removal; restoration.
1. Main text
On the Document image analysis and pattern recognition field of study, analysing handwritten text in palm leaf
manuscripts is an active and significant research challenge. Palm leaf manuscripts have a rich cultural legacy but
were then one of the most readily available writing materials. Palm leaf manuscripts contain a wealth of
information on health, astrology, history, language, music, mathematics, and the Scriptures. Handwritten writing and
books have been inscribed on leaves in Kerala for over 700 years, with the earliest dating back over 1000 years.
They are incredibly valuable in literature and study, and they are an important part of the world's cultural heritage.
The hole in the palm manuscript is used to tie a string around the manuscript. The manuscripts are then placed
between two wooden planks that are slightly larger than the manuscripts. Various preservation methods are
employed for longevity of palm leaf manuscripts and this may lead to deterioration of documents over time and the
leaf is very susceptible resulting in discoloration, dust and dirt accumulation, variations in document texture due to
varying climatic conditions, biological factors etc. All the said deteriorations lead to cleavage of surface layer from
Please cite this article as: First author et al., Article title, Computer Vision and Image Understanding (2017),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cviu.2017.00.000
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4117317

2 Author name /Computer Vision and Image Understanding 000 (2017) 000–000
main body of palm leaf as this breaks the bond with other layers of leaf. As a consequence, the text becomes
illegible either due to fading away of ink or non-application of ink.
Ink fading on engraved writing can result in diminished legibility, resulting in faded text. The key concern is
recovering fading text in palm leaf manuscripts, which necessitates a unique pre-processing methodology. The
oxidation of cellulose produced by UV radiation from sunshine and fluorescent light causes ink to fade. Effects of
light on leaves that induce whitening and fading of particular inks by causing embrittlement and degradation.
Furthermore, the layers in palm leaves are broken down into small units, causing the layers to lose the links that hold
the leaf together, resulting in brittleness. Consequently, inks fade in diverse ways, with some fading while others
remain unchanged. Because palm leaf manuscripts will eventually age and deteriorate, it is critical to establish a
stable and reliable restoration technique for enhanced digital preservation.
In general, image restoration is the procedure for recovering a document from deterioration by reducing noise using
a continuous function known as the point spread function. The proposed study cleans the document and focuses on
recovering the faded ink text pixels with the use of a thresholding model that works with an image's HSV colour
space. Malayalam Palm leaf manuscripts of Devi Mahatmyam from Kerala are both a synthesis of millennia of
Indian concepts about the divine feminine and a basis for subsequent centuries of literature and spirituality focused
on feminine transcendence (Fulkerson et al, 2011). Because the manuscripts are almost 700 years old, they are
susceptible to degradation and are currently illegible to read with human eyes. Though the overall goal of the work
is to improve palm leaf quality by removing deterioration, one of the study's main goals is to recover faded ink text
pixels in engraved regions. Fig. 1 demonstrates palm leaf samples from Devi Mahatmyam manuscripts with
deteriorations such as ink fading and brittleness of the palm leaf surface that are quite visible.
(a) Sample 1 (b) Sample 2

Fig. 1. Palm leaf samples of Devi Mahatmyam emphasizing deterioration text sections
The entangled portions in figure 1 are designated in green to indicate non-fading text areas and sections indicated in
red to indicate faded text sections. Other types of deterioration exist in addition to ink fading, such as uneven
lighting, brittleness in the writing surface, and marginal noise towards the image's boundaries. Ink fading in text
sections is caused by whitening of the leaf, which is caused by a lack of oxidation and inappropriate manuscript
preservation methods. The problem of palm leaf picture improvement in terms of recovering faded text parts is a
contested issue in literature. The reversal of the document's degradation process is represented by the recovery of
faded text sections.
Any image enhancement method is based on the features from a certain type of document; there are no universal
image enhancement procedures that work with all types of photographs. Document enhancement approaches are
designed as thresholding or filter-based image analysis models (Bannigidad et al, 2016) or deep learning based
models (Anvari et al, 2021) according to the state of the art of literature. The former methods, which use filters, rely
on the selection of noise reduction parameters, while the latter, which uses deep learning, necessitates a large
amount of metadata and CPU capacity to process. For improving both the visual quality and the intelligibility of
deteriorated Arabic and Latin handwritten writings, a deep learning architecture called Generative Adversarial
Networks (GAN) (Jemni et al, 2022) is used. GAN architecture is based on textual pixel information and
necessitates a large amount of metadata for both enhancement and recognition. Preservation strategies and
technologies accessible for Potala palace palm leaf manuscripts (Zhang et al, 2022) focus on storage methods and
types of deterioration in palm leaf manuscripts. In (Sathik et al, 2021) and (Athisayamani et al, 2021), researchers
used deep learning to recognise non-degraded palm leaf manuscripts of Tamil palm leaf manuscripts. Furthermore,
the study of a binarization technique based on the Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) for palm leaf manuscript
restoration (Alexander et al, 2020) emphasises the importance of legible palm leaf manuscripts. The 16th

Author name / Computer Vision and Image Understanding 000 (2017) 000–000 3
International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR-2018) held a competition on Document

Image Analysis (DIA) tasks for Southeast Asian Palm Leaf Manuscripts, with the goal of creating a corpus of palm
leaf manuscripts written in three different scripts and languages (Balinese, Sundanese, and Khmer) and performing
tasks such as binarization, text line segmentation, isolated character/glyph recognition, and word transliteration
(Kesiman et al, 2018). Models are meant to work with usually deteriorated palm leaf images and do not
necessarily involve the recovery of faded text. There are other studies related to the establishment of
transcriptoriums/benchmarkings (Kesiman et al, 2018 and Kesiman et al, 2015) for palm leaf manuscripts,
preservation methods (Saxena et al, 2021), recognition (Inkeaw et al, 2015, Chamchong et al, 2011, Shanmugam et
al, 2022 and Guruprasad et al, 2019), segmentation (Peng et al, 2016 and Valy et al, 2016), and binarization
(Chamchong et al, 2010, Chen et al, 2010 and Paulus et al, 2021), and other topics.
There are only a few attempts in the literature on palm leaf manuscript Furthermore, no work exists that particularly
tackles issues like fading text recovery, blur reduction, or marginal noise removal. According to the study, this is the
first study focusing on faded text recovery in palm leaf manuscripts to our knowledge. On the other hand, existing
models' implications for palm leaf enhancement are ineffective for recovering fading text. As a result, the proposed
research is motivated to work on faded text recovery and enhancement in palm leaf manuscripts.
The remainder of the paper is laid out as follows. The review of literature of major works related to document image
repair and enhancement is presented in Section 2. In section 3, the methodology for recovering document images is
provided. Section 4 discusses the proposed model's evaluation and comparative analysis. Finally, in section 5, there
are some concluding observations.
2. Prior works
Binarization of photos can be accomplished in two ways: one using thresholding-based approaches, and the other
using supervised learning-based approaches. Because both systems are dependent on distinct types of processing
flows, each has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. Though threshold-based approaches are sensitive to the
thresholds employed for specific types of image attributes, they are not reliant on any pre-modeled information for
the learning process and do not require a vast amount of data for algorithmic modelling and design. Supervised
learning methods based on deep learning, on the other hand, necessitate enough metadata for training and validation.
Aside from that, the simplicity of any technique consists in producing consistent results with the most efficient use
of resources, which is dependent on the context of the problem to be solved. Thresholding methods would have a
detrimental impact on outcomes only if the model was overfitted to handle different document types, as these
methods are heavily relied upon specific image characteristics. As a result, limiting the algorithm's usefulness to a
small spectrum of document characteristics would yield consistent results. This section discusses some of the key
contributions made in relation to the proposed research challenges.
Crowley (Crowley et al, 2009) has addressed various challenges that arose in the process of physical maintenance
and recovery of palm leaf manuscripts in his work on conservation and repair of palm leaf manuscripts, in 1970s.
Prescott (Prescott et al, 1997) proceeds to discuss several strategies for digitization and damaged text recovery in a
subsequent study based on the use of ultraviolet rays to acquire palm leaf images. Though effective, these
techniques are time consuming and costly, and some manuscripts are destroyed throughout the restoration process.
Various technologies for the conservation of damaged or faded text are presented by Kiernan (Kiernan et al, 1994).
The majority of the methods are non-computational and rely on image acquisition technologies that use different
energies in the spectrum. A review on the dispersion of manuscripts, their history of use, current availability, and the
material and technology employed for palm leaf manuscripts is explored in a work by Sah (Anupam et al, 2002) and
Kumar et al (Kumar et al, 2009) also provided a method for recovering fading text that involves smearing a paste of
charcoal powder mixed oil on the manuscript and wiping it away. However, the approach necessitates the presence
of manuscripts in good condition; otherwise, the process may cause damage to other parts of the image. Liang and
Doermann (Liang et al, 2005) looked examined different application fields, technical problems, and solutions for
camera-captured manuscripts. Following, Itay et al (Bar-Yosef et al, 2007) used palaeographic analysis and
recognition system to examine approaches to binarize, extract characters, and identify writers in Hebrew calligraphy
documents in a later work. Following that, Cherala et al (Cherala et al, 2008) developed an adaptive binarization
method to improve palm leaf manuscripts in order to reduce coloured noise in photographs. However, the method is

limited to coloured noise, and the datasets used are of high resolution. Chamchung et al (Chamchong et al, 2010)
provide a comparison analysis on global-local thresholding to discover the best binarization method for segmenting
characters from historical sources. However, the datasets used in the analysis include non-palm leaf manuscripts.
Fung and Chamchong et al (Fung et al, 2010) conducted research to discover the best binarization strategy for
enhancing palm leaf text images in a future paper by the same authors. Experiments were conducted using a variety
of local and global thresholding strategies, and it was discovered that no technique is capable of producing ideal
performance when it comes to palm leaf manuscript enhancement.
Multiple experiments are carried out on palm leaf manuscripts by Krishna et al (Krishna et al, 2014) using
clustering-based binarization techniques such as K-Means. For the evaluation, a dataset of ten images was
employed, and the accuracy was adequate. Baums et al (Baums et al, 2014) proposed a dataset entitled Gandharan
Scrolls, which includes ten scrolls. In a subsequent study, Kesiman et al (Kesiman et al, 2015) investigated the
generation of ground truth images of ancient palm leaf manuscripts with degraded and non-degraded aspects. The
results show that satisfactory performance may be achieved on low-quality palm-leaf manuscripts. In a later work by
Kesiman et al (Kesiman et al, 2015),who employed various binarization and skeletonization to the datasets. The
outcome differs from the binarized and skeletonized results. A Balinese dataset named Amadi LontarSet containing
binarized ground truth, word annotated, and isolated character images is proposed in a future work by Kesiman et al
(Kesiman et al, 2016). Later, Subramani et al. (Subramani et al, 2017) employed a binarization method with a mean
shift algorithm and trimmed median filter to enhance Tamil palm leaf manuscripts. The analysis is run using images
from the GOML library that have a PSNR of 46.2. Burie et al. (Burie et al, 2016) investigated the effectiveness of
several binarization techniques in recognising handwritten text from Balinese palm leaf manuscripts. Experiments
on binarization, word spotting, and character isolation from palm leaf manuscripts are carried out. Later, Ge et al
(Ge et al, 2017) used 288 pages of palm leaf images to evaluate a binarization method based on Stroke edge-based
methodology. Following the work of Craig et al (Craig-McFeely et al, 2018), forensic reconstruction approaches are
used to design a methodology for recovering lost texts from manuscripts. Various image collections of ancient
degraded papers from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries are used for appraisal. Following that,
Ayyalasomayajula et al (Ayyalasomayajula et al, 2019) use primal-dual networks to examine a deep learning
strategy to binarize documents. The evaluation is based on DIBCO datasets, which have an average accuracy of 94
percent.
Subsequently, Sulaiman et al (Sulaiman et al, 2019) provide a recent review of the issues, challenges, approaches,
and future directions of binarization of deteriorated historic materials. Following that, Saxena (Saxena et al, 2019)
presents an overview of various binarization approaches that have evolved from the Niblack method. The HDIBCO
2016 dataset was used to test the strategies, and it was revealed that heuristic methods produce better results in the
majority of cases. Following this, Alexander et al (Alexander et al, 2020) established a novel binarization strategy
based on the Whale Optimization algorithm for improving the Tamil Palm leaf dataset. From comparisons with state
of art methods, it is found that the proposed system is more accurate than existing approaches.
From the literature, it appears that there are just a few efforts on restoring degraded palm leaf manuscripts. For
the removal of degradation and text recovery in palm leaf manuscripts, the majority of existing research focuses on
using chemical-based text recovery, degradation removal techniques, and ultra violet spectrum-based imaging
approaches. These approaches, while producing good results, necessitate costly processing and time-consuming
procedures. There are automated approaches available; these methods mostly focus on removing color-based
degradations and uneven illuminations. It's also interesting to note that the majority of papers focus on the creation
of benchmark datasets as well as meta data heuristics in the areas of digitization and archiving. There is a paucity of
work on post-digital improvement activities that could boost the exposure and value of old knowledge. Furthermore,
issues such as the recovery of faded text strokes are rarely addressed; hence the goal of this study is to design an
efficient model for degraded and faded palm leaf manuscripts.
3. Proposed System Design
The proposed system is devised of various modules which perform different activities including document
digitizer, document image reader, document color space transformer, document restoration module, display unit and
storage unit. Figure 2 describes the important components of proposed faded document restoration system.

Document Document Document Restored

Image Reader Transformer Restoration Document
Module
Document
Storage
Fig. 2. Working model of Faded document restoration system
A. Document Digitizer: This module is responsible to capture the image of the physical palm leaf document using
camera app in mobile. The capture image may be stored into a device folder as a JPEG/ TIFF / PNG image for
subsequent processing or upload. Images are captured in various resolutions in in both indoor and outdoor settings
based on camera configuration, ranging from 8 mega pixels to 100+ mega pixels. Images are provided in RGB
colour space by default, with spatial dimensions ranging from 409x1574 to 1005x4400.
B. Document image reader: This module is responsible for reading manuscript images already available in digital
form on the device or at a remote location. If the document needs to be fetched from a remote location, the unit shall
acquire the location and access credentials for retrieving the needed images. Images may be read as a single file or
in batch mode where all files available in a folder are taken in together.
C. Document (Color Space) transformer: This module is responsible for transforming an image into a format that
may be used for mid-level processing. Contrast enhancement is applied to the image and then converted to HSV
colour space. The detection and elimination of marginal/hole region noise is one of this module's most important
functions. This module creates a noise-free document image of the original document, which is then given to the
document restoration module for further processing.
D. Document Restoration module: The noise-free document obtained by the document transformer is used as input
in this module. A global faded text restoration threshold is computed using the HSV channel details of a noise free
document image. The saturation channel of the noise free document image is thresholded, resulting in a binary faded
text stroke restoration mask.
E. Restored document: The result will be an RGB image that has been cleaned of all noise and degradations. A
restored document is one that has been free of all noise and distortions while retaining faded text strokes. It is the
end result of the document restoration module.
Document storage: This is a location where all of the documents that have been restored are kept for future use. The
documents saved can be used for optical character recognition (OCR) and other information retrieval tasks. The
output repository can also be used for various scientific investigations utilizing transfer learning and deep learning,
resulting to the development of futuristic prototypes that OCR can use to improve its efficiency.
4. Proposed Methodology
Given a palm leaf manuscript image, initially we apply contrast adjustment on W 0 to obtain W 1 and transform the
1
image W 1 to HSV space Whsv . Next the channels ‘ s ’ and ‘ h ’ are considered for computing the faded text
0
recovery threshold T and hole and marginal region detection. Further, the information in channel ‘ h ’ is used to

0 0
perform hole and margin detection leading to creation of hole and margin mask R . Next, R is used as a
reference for de-noising of hole and margin regions in W 1 to obtain a preprocessed image W 2 . Further, the
2
computed threshold T0 is applied at pixel level as a predicate on preprocessed image W , resulting into a faded text
3 3
recovered image W . Finally post processing protocols are applied on faded text recovered image W to get more
4
precise and enhanced image W . Fig. 3 outlines the various phases of document restoration module.
Digitized palm Contrast Transformation Hole & margin

leaf manuscript adjustment to HSV space region detection
& denoising
Enhanced Post Faded text Compute faded

manuscript processing restored text recovery
manuscript threshold
Fig. 3. Flow of Document Restoration Module-Faded text recovery in palm leaf manuscripts
4.1 Contrast Adjustment
This is used to improve the contrast of micro image details that are difficult to see with the naked eye. Those with
higher contrast levels typically show more intensity variation than images with lower contrast levels. Contrast
adjustment refers to changes or manipulations of intensity levels that can improve the distinction between
foreground and background pixels. As a result of this transformation, low contrast intensity levels are shifted
towards considerably darker shades and high contrast intensity levels are shifted towards brighter shades, resulting
in a change in the degree of intensity differentiation between foreground and background pixels.
Contrast adjustment is key in the proposed method for achieving the desired outcomes in the multi-level processing
pipeline. The primary purpose of this transformation is to improve the gradient details in order to aid in the recovery
of faded text strokes. Fig. 4 shows the results of performing contrast correction.
Let f1 denote the contrast adjustment transformation which is subject to RGB image W 0 with ( xi , y j ) as a pixel
position ofW 0 with i=1, 2, 3…m and j=1, 2, 3…n. Applying f1 would produce contrast enhanced image W 1 .
0 0
Function f1 applies a transformation ‘t’ on input intensity level r of W ( xi , y j ) from i=1, 2, 3…m and j=1, 2,
1
3…n producing an adjusted intensity r with respect to gray levels lying in the minimum range lmin to lmax of W 0
as in (1).
f1 (t ) : W 0  W 1 and r1  t (r 0 ) (1)
Further, gray levels lies in lmin  r  lmax and lmin  r  lmax .
0 1
(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 4. Contrast adjustment using image contrast transformation
Figure 4(a) is the original image and 4(c) is its intensity profile, 4(b) is the result of contrast adjustment and its
intensity profile in 4(d).
4.2 Transformation to HSV Space
1
In the proposed method, we analyze the image details available in the HSV color space of image W for two
purposes. One is for computation of faded text stroke recovery threshold and the other is to detect the hole and
margin regions. HSV color space provides opportunity to deal with par visual effect, blurring and low brightness in
1
RGB images as it separates the brightness of images. RGB image W1 is converted to HSV color space Whsv
highlight the chromaticity details in channel ‘h’, saturation details in channel ‘s’ and brightness details in channel
‘v’. Image details in channels ‘h’, ‘s’ & ‘v’ do not overlap with each other and effectively separates color and
brightness which helps in clear interpretation and understanding of specific color details pertaining to various
sections of image.
Given RGB image W 1 , which is subject to extraction of channel ‘h’ abbreviated as hue, ‘s’ as saturation and ‘v’ as
1
value in HSV color space Whsv . Hue ‘h’ is also known to be chromaticity that helps in distinguishing a certain color
from a macro perspective, such as white, yellow, green, magenta, red, blue, black etc. Saturation ‘s’ refers to purity
1
of color and it would be very low for much brighter or darker intensities. Additionally, HSV color space Whsv is
more suitable and inline with visual characteristics of the human eye. This specific aspect brings the average range
to ‘s’ space to help in the detection of faded text recovery threshold. Thus, we convert the input image from RGB to
HSV space for processing.
Hue values vary from 0 to 360 degrees, with red (0-60), yellow (60-120), green (120-180), cyan (180-240), blue
(240-300), and magenta (240-300) being the most common hues (300-360). Saturation refers to the percentage of
grey in an image that ranges from 0% to 100%. When we set the value 'v' to '0,' the image appears completely black
with no brightness, whereas bigger values increase brightness, resulting in colour discrimination, and vice versa.
Channels 's' and 'v' are used in the proposed method to determine thresholds for fading text stroke recovery and
hole/margin detection. The method of computing threshold for the tasks of fading text stroke recovery and
hole/margin detection is presented in the next sections.
4.3 Hole/Margin region detection & de-noising:
Because all of the original images have a darker background, computing the faded text stroke recovery threshold
using the original image will result in inaccurate threshold estimates. For fading text stroke recovery threshold
computation, the original image after noise removal in the outer border is used. Based on the HSV colour space
1
Whsv , this method has generated a fairly precise threshold producing a faded text stroke restored output in original
image.
1
Given channels hue ‘h’, saturation ‘s’ and value ‘v’ of HSV color space Whsv . Consider, channel ‘h’ and apply
Otsu’s global thresholding f 2 [43] with gray level threshold of gth . If lr with r  lmin ...lmax represents a gray level

at h( xi , y j ) for i  1, 2,3...m and j  1, 2,3...n , then a gray level lr that is below gth will be mapped to 0 and
above gth will be mapped to 1 as given in (2).
f2 (h, gth ) : h  hb1 (2)
such that lr  gth , h( xi , y j )  0 and h( xi , y j )  1 Otherwise
As a result, a thresholded image hb1 is obtained from channel ‘h’. Next, the thresholded image hb1 is sent for
morphological erosion f3 [44] for removal of small objects and other minute edge details. Given a binary image
hb1 , structuring element Se , the erosion of hb1 by Se denoted by hb1Se produces a hole and margin detection
mask hb 2 as in (3).
hb 2  hb1Se (3)
Hole and margin detection mask hb 2 is filled with ones in locations of ( xi , y j ) of Se ’s origin at which structuring
element fits hb1 , i.e. hb1 ( xi , y j )  1 and 0 otherwise repeating for all pixel coordinates ( xi , y j ) from i=1, 2,
3…m and j=1, 2, 3…n. In the proposed method structuring element of size 7x7 is employed iteratively for four times
to eliminate the small objects. Further, hole and margin detection mask hb 2 is used for de-noising of hole/margin
sections of original RGB image W 0 . Fig. 5 shows the results of hole/margin detection and de-noising for the
sample used in fig. 4.
4.4 De-noising of hole/margin regions:

Given, hole/margin detection mask hb 2 and original RGB image W 0 For every W 0 ( xi , y j ) from i=1, 2, 3…m and
j=1, 2, 3…n if there exists hb 2 ( xi , y j )  1 with i  i & j  j corresponding to hb 2 and W 0 , then quantize
W 0 ( xi , y j , k )  lmax where k  1, 2,3 representing red, green and blue channels of W 0 and lmax is the
maximum intensity level. This process will be repeated for all pixel locations of W 0 . Further, if hb 2 ( xi , y j )  0
then, W ( xi , y j )  W ( xi , y j ) , as a result of de-noising hole and margin regions in
0 0
W 0 , a pre-processed image
W 2 is obtained. Fig. 6 shows the pre-processing pipeline of the proposed faded text stroke recovery method.
(a) Original image (b) After de-noising the hole/margin regions
(c) Histogram of (a) (d) Histogram of (b) (e) Hole/margin detection
Fig. 5. Results of hole/margin detection and de-noising

RGB input Adjust contrast TransformW1 Extract channel

0 1 1
W W 1
to HSV space Whsv h of Whsv
Apply
f1
Pre-processed Hole & margin Thresholded
Apply denoising
detection mask
image W2 on W 0 image hb1
hb 2
Apply
Fig. 6. Pre-processing workflow of faded text stroke recovery method f2
4.5 Computation of faded text recovery threshold:
Given pre-processed image W 2 of RGB color space, which is then transformed to HSV color space producing
2 2 2 2 2
Whsv comprising of channels hue Wh , saturation Ws and value Wv . Saturation channel Ws is considered for
exploiting the statistical features such as mean distribution of intensities s and standard deviation  s to compute
the faded text stroke recovery threshold t f . Fig. 7 depicts the process of faded text recovery threshold computation.
Perform statistical
Pre-processed Transform W 2 into Extract saturation
feature computation
image W2 HSV space W
0 channel Ws2 2
of Ws
TransformW 2 into Compute faded text Compute faded text

2 Apply
RGB space WRGB recovery threshold t f recovery threshold t f
tf
Extract green Binary image Post

2 2
channel W g
Wgbi processing
Fig. 7. Computation of faded text recovery threshold
If r1 , r2 , r3...rs represents the intensities with r1  lmin and rs  lmax denoting the minimum and maximum gray
levels corresponding to saturation channel image Ws2 corresponding to pixel locations Ws2 ( xi , y j ) from i=1, 2,
3…m and j=1, 2, 3…n. The mean s of Ws2 constituting of gray levels rij of Ws2 ( xi , y j ) is in (4) and standard
deviation s of Ws2 of gray level distribution in (5).
1
s  
m,n
r (4)
m n i 1, j 1 ij

1
s   (rij  s ) 2
m,n
(5)
m n i 1, j 1
An intensity value rij represents the density of a pixel, which essentially denote the amount of lightness or darkness
ranging from 0 to 100%. An increased saturation percentage of rij represents lighter shades and rij  0 indicate
black. The percentage of saturation lying away from zero percentage and close to midrange of saturation of rij
indicate the true color edge details. Also, by suppression of darker shades lying close to zero percentage emphasizes
other gray levels (image details related to faded text strokes) that are not apparent in gray level distribution from
lmin ...lmax . Therefore, in the proposed method, mean  s and standard deviation  s of gray level distribution of
2
channel Ws is considered significantly in computation of faded text stroke recovery threshold.
It is observed that, contrast of image being distributed with a combination of empirical relation constituted using
mean s and standard deviation  s of gray level distribution of channel Ws2 would lead to suppression of gray
levels that cause faded appearance of text strokes. Therefore, based on the mean s and standard deviation  s , the
faded text recovery threshold is determined as follows. If lmin and lmax represents original minimum and maximum
gray level range of saturation channel Ws2 , the adjusted minimum gray level and adjusted maximum gray levels be
' '
denoted by lmin and lmax are determined as in (6).
'
lmin  s  C   s (6)
In (6), C is a constant that is which is recommended to be initialized in negative exponents that are raised to the
power of 10 divided by 4 as per the proposed method’s performance towards faded text palm leaf manuscripts.
107
Thus, the recommended value of C for faded text stroke recovery in palm leaf images is C . Thus, leading
4
'
to more specific determination of adjusted minimum gray level lmin as in (7) and adjusted maximum gray level
'
lmax remains same as original maximum gray level lmax as in (8).
107 
'
lmin  s    s  (7)
 4 
lmax  lmax
'
(8)
' ' 2
Subsequently, adjusted gray levels lmin and lmax are applied on green channel of pre-processed RGB image W .
Let Wr2 , Wg2 , Wb2 denoting the red, green and blue channels of pre-processed image W 2 of its RGB color space
2 2
WRGB , then the process of faded text stroke recovery is subjective with respect to only green channel Wg . Given,
Wg2 ( xi , y j ) with i=1, 2, 3…m and j=1, 2, 3…n as the pixel locations that are subject to processing by implying
' '
the lmin and lmax as the minimum and maximum gray level thresholds. Let t f be the faded text stroke recovery
'
threshold, then the adjusted minimum gray level lmin is assumed as t f as in (9).
t f  lmin
'
(9)
The implication of gray level threshold t f on each Wg2 ( xi , y j ) from i=1, 2, 3…m and j=1, 2, 3…n with respect to
all m  n number of locations is expressed as in (10). Post thresholding outcomes towards Wg2 would result in

' '
transformation of actual gray levels in the range of lmin and lmax to adjusted gray level range lmin and lmax as
indicated in (11).
Wg2 ( xi , y j )  t f then Wg2 ( xi , y j )  1 Otherwise Wg2 ( xi , y j )  0 (10)
lmin  Wg2 ( xi , y j )  lmax  lmin
'
 Wg2 ( xi , y j )  lmax
'
(11)
2 2
As a result of applying (10) on green channel Wg , a binary image Wgbi is produced with each
2
Wgbi ( xi , y j )  (0,1) and where i=1, 2, 3…m and j=1, 2, 3…n. Binary image Wgbi
2
clearly indicates the recovery
of faded text strokes and will be assumed as a reference image to recover the faded text strokes in pre-processed
image
2
W 2 . Further for each Wgbi ( xi , y j )  0 , the corresponding W 2 ( xi , y j )  0 , for each (i, j ), k  1, 2,3 is
considered and where ‘0’ represent the intensity level black and k=1 for Wr2 , k=2 for Wg2 and k=3 for Wb2 . The
2
process of faded text stroke recovery is performing enhancement towards each channel in WRGB of pre-processed
2
image W 2 using Wgbi 3
as a reference mask will produce faded text recovered image W as in (12).
Wr2 ( xi , y j )  0
if (W ( xi , y j )  0)
2

gbi
W 3  Wg2 ( xi , y j )  0 (12)
for (i  1...m, j  1...n)  2
Wb ( xi , y j )  0
3
Next, W is sent to post enhancement procedure for noise removal and conversion to binary image. Results of
applying (12) on fig. 4(a) before and after faded text stroke recovery is shown in fig. 8(a) and 8(b) along with its
enlarged views in fig. 8(c) and 8(d).
(a) Original image (b) Faded text recovered image
(c) Enlarged section of (a) (d) Enlarged section of (b)

Fig. 8. Outcome of faded text recovery process for images in figure 4
4.6. Post processing:
Given, RGB image W 3 , which is split into red, green and blue channels Wr3 , Wg3 , Wb3 of RGB color space
3 3 3
WRGB . Consider, green channel Wg of WRGB , the gray levels in the range of lmin to lmax are thresholded using
adaptive thresholding technique [45] that would result in quantization of the pixel locations to 0/1 subject to
thresholding predicates. As a result, a binary image Wgbi
3
is obtained after adaptive thresholding. Further, to enhance
3
the binary image Wgbi , morphological operations are applied.

3
Given, Wgbi and rectangular structuring element Se with dimensions of size 2x2. Apply morphological closing
3
which is initially dilation of Wgbi with Se to fill the broken and distorted gaps in binary image Wgbi3 , followed by
3
erosion of Wgbi with Se to smoothen the excessively dilated text strokes as given in (13).
3
Wgbi  Se  (Wgbi
3
 S r )S r (13)
3
Where, Sr is the structuring element Se rotated by 1800 . Implication of (13) on Wgbi produces an enhanced
4
output image Woutput . Fig. 9 shows the outcome of post enhancement phase.
(a) Green channel image (b) Final output

Fig. 9: Outcome of post enhancement
5. Experimental Analysis
The proposed technique is evaluated using primary data obtained of Malayalam palm leaf manuscripts from three
different categories. For the experiments, 98 samples of visually non-readable text from Shiju Alex databases related
to Devimahatmyam were considered. Fading, uneven illuminations, brittleness, ink stains, insect activity, and other
biological processes have degraded the Devimahatmyam palm leaf manuscripts, which contain 98 images of palm
leaf. Depending on the type of deterioration, images are classified as severe fading and severe degradations, severe
fading and minimal degradations, moderate fading and severe degradations, moderate fading and minimal
degradations, no fading and severe degradations, and no fading and minimal degradations. Table 1 lists the
characteristics of the datasets based on the collections gathered and degradation pattern kinds.
Table 1: Dataset details with degradation specifics of palm leaf samples
Severe degradations Moderate degradations Total

Degradation Original manuscript Original manuscript manuscript
Characteristics samples samples samples
Severe fading 33 12 45
Moderate fading 15 22 37
No fading 13 3 16
Total 61 37 98
5.1 Metrics considered for evaluation:
In the proposed research, the evaluation is conducted is using no-reference metrics that may relate to the intensity
distribution characteristics of an image. To validate original images versus obtained outcomes, Average Luminance
( AL ), Absolute Central Moments( ACM ), and Gray Level Variance ( GLV ). One of the most important
characteristics of a digital image is its luminance, which is required to interpret spatial patterns. It is a measure of
luminous/brighter intensity per pixel that is affected by the image's brightness and contrast. The amount of
luminance and contrast in spatial patterns affects human vision's brightness adaptation and discrimination. Adjusting
the contrast and brightness to low or high will reveal precise spatial patterns. The average luminance level is the
measure of contrast and brightness required to see spatial patterns in images, and it cannot be seen at very low or
very high contrast and brightness. The average luminance level of an image is moved high or low by changes in
brightness and contrast. Variations in contrast would also increase or decrease the difference between the brightest
and darkest areas of the digital images. For perceiving clear spatial features in digital images, determining the

minimum intensity range and maximum intensity range on grayscale range is critical.
For an image 𝑊0 (faded text image), AL of 𝑊0 be al , if implication of proposed algorithm would result in
producing an increment of AL by △l resulting in (11).
4
AL(Woutput )  AL(W 0 )  l (11)
al'  al  l (12)
In (12), represents the corrected average luminance which can show the faded text stroke patterns in output image
. Average luminance of an arbitrary image W is computed with the help of its red channel , green channel
and blue channel . Assume , and are the weights associated with , and of an image, then a
weighted gray image is obtained viz. (13). For an image of dimension rxc, the mean of gray level l, associated
with pixel such that and is given by (14).
Wgray  w1 Wr  w2 Wg  w3 Wb (13)
1 i  r , j c
AL(W )   l ( xij )
N i 1, j 1
(14)
In (14), represents the gray level at position . Further, ACM is also used to assess the performance of the
proposed method based on image shape attributes. The shape or geometrical features of an image are referred to as
shape moments. ACM is a statistical metric that measures the variability of an image's grey levels in relation to its
local mean. These characteristics aid in the recognition of visual patterns regardless of their position, orientation, or
size. ACM is used to quantify the recovery of faded spatial patterns from the original image to the output image. The
ACM measurement helps in the interpretation of density of gray level distributions from the original to the output
image [44]. We also used the GLV of a picture W to comprehend the dispersion of grey levels, which is measured
by the standard deviation of grey levels distributions as in (15).
1 i  r , j c
GLV (W )   ( xij AL(W ))2
N i 1, j 1
(15)
A performance assessment mechanism for degraded palm leaf manuscripts is proposed employing AL, ACM, and
GLV metrics, as shown in figure 10. Documents with severe fading + (severe/minimal) degradations (C1),
documents barely fading + (severe/minimal) degradations (C2), and documents with no fading + (severe/minimal)
degradations (C3) are the three groups of datasets for which the range of performance is defined (C3). The acquired
quantities for AL, ACM, and GLV are compared to their respective minimum and maximum criteria, and
performance measurements are made.
(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 10. Performance meter for no-reference metrics (a), (b) & (c)
A No visible light + no spatial patterns

B Low contrast + Highly crumbled/distorted spatial patterns
C Visible light + faded spatial patterns
D Visible light + fading restored spatial patterns
E Excessive luminance + no visible spatial patterns
In figure 10, code A represents the absence of light, hence in a palm leaf manuscript no apparent text/degradation
patterns can be seen. Code B images have a gloomy appearance and have badly deformed text strokes/degradations
and breakages. Following that, code C for palm leaf manuscripts indicates enhanced contrast with faded text strokes

in regions of images damaged by ink fading, and these are the original images in their original form. Code D denotes
the recovery of faded text strokes, resulting in enhanced contrast, legible text stroke patterns, and the reduction of
deterioration. Finally, photographs with very high brightness and high contrast but no recognisable text stroke
patterns are classified as code E. Figure 8 shows the performance of existing approaches and the proposed method
utilising the no-reference metrics AL, ACM, and GLV. The performance of each technique is measured in terms of
AL, ACM, and GLV with respect to dataset categorizations C1, C2, and C3 and is compared to original image
measures highlighted in the form of a smoothed red coloured line in plots from (a) to (c) (i). Figure 11 depicts the
individual AL, ACM, and GLV readings in relation to the dataset categories C1, C2, and C3.
200 150 150
Absolute Central Moments
Gray Level Variance

Average Luminance
150
100 100
100
50 50
50
0 0 0
OI PM S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 OI PM S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 OI PM S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9
Original image versus Methods Original image versus Methods Original image versus Methods
(a) AL of C1 (b) ACM of C1 (c) GLV of C1

200 100
100
Average Luminance
Gray Level Variance

80 80
150
60 60
100
40 40
50
20 20
0 0 0
(d) AL of C2 (e) ACM of C2 (f) GLV of C2

150
200
Gray Level Variance
150
Average Luminance
150 100
100
100
50
50
50
0 0
0
(g) AL of C3 (h) ACM of C3 (i) GLV of C3
Fig. 11. Statistical summary of AL, ACM and GLV-Original vs. experimented methods
On the X-axis, OI stands for original image, PM for proposed technique, S1 for adaptive thresholding, S2 for
Bradley, S3 for Brenson, S4 for Feng, S5 for Kittler, S6 for Niblack, S7 for Wolf, S8 for Sauvola, and S9 for Otsu.
The statistical summary of category wise image samples obtained in relation to various state-of-the-art techniques
and proposed method corresponding to original image is provided in figure 9, with brief interpretations discussed in
table 2. The data imply that the proposed method for non-faded palm leaf manuscripts C3 is equivalent to state-of-
the-art techniques Wolf, Sauvola, Kittler's, Otsu, and Niblack. On the other hand, Sauvola's findings are close to the
proposed approach for moderately faded category C2 palm leaf manuscripts. Finally, the proposed method
outperforms all state-of-the-art methods in the scenario of severely faded palm leaf manuscripts of category C1.

Table 2: Performance of state of art methods versus proposed method

Performance code Illustrative visual characteristics of Documents with Documents slightly Documents with
documents severe fading + fading + no fading +
Severe/less Severe/less Severe/less
degradations (C1) degradations (C2) degradations (C3)
A Low contrast image with illegible text Brenson’s Brenson’s Brenson’s
strokes and dominant darker intensity
levels.
B Low contrast document image with Feng’s, adaptive Feng’s, adaptive Feng’s, adaptive
Excessive noise distortions along thresholding, thresholding, thresholding,
with partial legibility of text strokes. Bradley’s, Bradley’s, Bradley’s
Sauvola’s Niblack’s
C Partial faded text stroke recovery Otsu, Wolf, Wolf, Otsu, -

with distorted text stroke resemblance Niblack, Kittler’s Kittler’s
appended by Gaussian noise
D A good contrast document with Proposed method Proposed method, Proposed method,
recovery of faded text strokes and Sauvola’s Wolf, Sauvola,
good text legibility. Kittler’s. Otsu.
Niblack
E A document with dominant light None None None

effect with no legible text patterns.
Tables 3, 4, and 5 show the results of state-of-the-art methodologies and the proposed method on datasets in table 1
in terms of with degradations and without/minimal degradations for categories C1, C2, and C3 in terms of severely
faded, moderately faded, and non-faded palm leaf manuscripts.
Table 3: AL of experimented samples - State of art techniques vs. proposed method

C1 with C1 with C2 with C2 with C3 with C3 with
Document
severe minimal severe minimal severe minimal
characteristics
degradations degradations degradations degradations degradations degradations
Original
C C C C C C
image
Proposed
D D D D C C
method
Brensons A A A A C C
Fengs B B C C A B
Otsu B B B C C C
Sauvola B C C C C C
Adaptive
C C C C D D
thresholding
Kittlers B B C C B B
Bradley C C C C C C
Wolf C C C C C C
Niblack C C C C C C
Table 3 shows that the proposed method is more effective than state-of-the-art methods in removing
severe/moderately faded and degraded manuscripts due to AL's response to specific classifications of C1, C2, and
C3. Furthermore, the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art techniques like Sauvola and Wolf when it comes
to removing degradations in non-faded manuscripts. Furthermore, while Brenson's method failed to improve the

performance of manuscripts in categories C1 and C2, it was shown to be satisfactory for manuscripts in category C3.
Bernson's method results in no visual or spatial patterns in severely or moderately faded image samples. Other
techniques have yielded no change in the average brightness difference from the original image, demonstrating the
presence of visible light and faded spatial patterns. Kittler's technique, on the other hand, responded by yielding
lower AL in text with extremely distorted spatial patterns.
Table 4: ACM of experimented samples - State of art techniques vs. proposed method
C1 with C1 with C2 with C3 with

Document severe minimal C2 with severe minimal C3 with severe minimal
characteristics degradations degradations degradations degradations degradations degradations
Original image C C C C C C
Proposed method D D D D D D
Brensons C C C B B D
Fengs C C C C C C
Otsu C C C C C D
Sauvola C C C C C D
Adaptive
C C C C C C
thresholding
Kittlers C C C D C C
Bradley C C C C C C
Wolf C C C C C D
Niblack C C C C C C
The performance of the proposed method is successful against fading and degradations in all categories of
manuscripts under C1, C2, and C3, according to outputs analysed using the ACM for specific categorizations of C1,
C2, and C3. Table 4 shows that no state-of-the-art technique comes close to replicating the performance of the
proposed method, particularly in categories C1 and C2. Furthermore, ACM of state-of-the-art methods Wolf,
Sauvola, and Otsu produce satisfactory results for non-faded category (C3) manuscripts. All state-of-the-art methods
yield results that are the same brightness as the original image and fail to recover fading text patterns.
Table 5: GLV of experimented samples - State of art techniques vs. proposed method
C1 with C1 with C2 with C2 with C3 with C3 with
Document severe minimal severe minimal severe minimal
characteristics degradations degradations degradations degradations degradations degradations
Original image C C C C C C
Proposed
D D D D D D
method
Brensons C C C C C C
Fengs C C C C C C
Otsu C C C C C D
Sauvola C C C C C D
Adaptive C C C C C C
thresholding
Kittlers C C C C C C
Bradley C C C C C C
Wolf C C C C C C
Niblack C C C C C C

When compared to state-of-the-art techniques, the response obtained using manuscripts from categories C1, C2, and
C3 shows that the proposed method performs well in terms of recovering fading text and removing degradation.
Furthermore, state-of-the-art methods perform poorly, and the variation of grey level distributions shows no
discernible improvement when compared to original images. Furthermore, the results show that, except from the
proposed method, no other state-of-the-art method has succeeded in thresholding the image in such a way that
changes in grey levels can restore the gray levels of faded text strokes. Only Sauvola and Otsu can do noise refining
in no-faded text with minimum deterioration, while all other approaches are ineffective in both recovering faded text
and noise refinement. Fig. 12 depicts the results of the proposed algorithm for some samples of categories of C1 , C2
and C3 .
(a) Sample 1 -C1 (b) Restored RGB image of 3(a) (c) Restored gray image of 3(a)
(d) Restored binary image of 3(a) (e) Sample 2 –C2 (f) Restored RGB image of 3(e)
(g) Restored gray image of 3(e) (h) Restored binary image of 3(e) (i) Sample 3 –C2
(j) Restored RGB image of 3(i) (k) Restored gray variant of 3(i) (l) Restored binary variant of 3(i)
(m) Sample 4 –C1 (n) Restored RGB image of 3(m) (o) Restored gray image of 3(m)
(p) Restored binary image of 3(m) (q) Sample 5 –C3 (r) Restored RGB image of 3(q)
(s) Restored gray image of 3(q) (t) Restored binary image of 3(q) (u) Sample 6 –C1
(v) Restored RGB image of 3(u) (w) Restored gray image of 3(u) (x) Restored binary image of 3(u)
Fig. 12. Outcomes of proposed algorithm - Recovery of severely faded text strokes
Figure 12 shows results of the proposed algorithm, which clearly show the recovery of faded text strokes in restored
RGB, gray, and binary variants. Despite the fact that binarization is used, results of binary variations reveal text
stroke breakages. The findings obtained in RGB and grey scale variants, on the other hand, suggest that the
proposed technique is effective in recovering fading text strokes. Furthermore, this study leads to questions about
binarization of recovered palm leaf writings. Table 6 also shows the results of experimentation on the sample 1,
sample 2 to sample 5 using state-of-the-art methods.
Table 6: Comparative results of state of art techniques towards fig. 3(a), 3(e) and 3(q)

Met- Figure 3(a): Sample 1-C1 Fig. 3(e): Sample 2 – C2 Fig. 3(q): Sample 5-C3
hod
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
S7
S8
S9
S1: Adaptive thresholding, S2: Bradley’s S3: Brenson’s S4: Feng’s S5: Kittler’s S6: Niblack’s S7: Otsu thresholding, S8: Sauvola’s, S9: Wolf
Outcomes achieved using state of art techniques shows that the performance towards non faded palm leaf
manuscripts enhancement is effective with Sauvola’s, Niblack’s and adaptive thresholding. On the otherhand,
techniques such as Wolf also produced satisfactory performance that may result in partial readability of manuscripts.
However, it is noticed that all the state of art techniques had failed to recover the faded text strokes in category C1
manuscripts and method S1 is able to achieve satisfactory readability towards the text stroke recovery in moderately
faded manuscripts of category C2 . Thus the proposed method is able to accomplish promising results towards
recovery of faded text strokes of severely faded C1 and moderately faded C2 manuscripts.
6. Conclusion and Future work
The overall aim of this study is to create an image enhancement method that will aid in the post-digitization process
of palm leaf manuscripts. As we have found through our research, palm leaf manuscripts contain the majority of
valuable knowledge and document made material is vulnerable to a variety of degradation challenges such as
uneven illumination, climatic factors, biological activity type degradation, fading of text strokes, and colour
discoloration. For the recovery of faded text strokes in palm leaf manuscripts, a faded text recovery methodology
based on HSV colour space, thresholding methods, and morphological operations was utilised in this study. The
proposed technique's performance is shallow when compared to state-of-the-art procedures, according to the
evaluation. Though there are some complexities in terms of noise reduction following fading text recovery, the
primary goal of this research is met. Furthermore, future directions to focus on include using an adaptive
binarization model to predict noise from restored documents and categorising palm leaf manuscripts based on

deterioration type and degree of fading. As a result, the proposed technique has been proven to be effective in the
recovery and enhancement of faded palm leaf manuscripts.
Acknowledgements
This work is contributed as part of seed grant towards development of innovative systems in discovery lab at
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Mysuru Campus. We are very thankful for grant sanctioned for work involved as
part of dataset collection.
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Automated Enhancement of Faded Palm Leaf Manuscripts To Restore Text Legibility

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Automated Enhancement of Faded Palm Leaf Manuscripts To Restore Text Legibility

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Computer Vision and Image

Automated Enhancement of Faded Palm Leaf Manuscripts to

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(a) Sample 1 (b) Sample 2

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International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR-2018) held a competition on Document

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3. Proposed System Design

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Document Document Document Restored

Fig. 2. Working model of Faded document restoration system

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Digitized palm Contrast Transformation Hole & margin

Enhanced Post Faded text Compute faded

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4.2 Transformation to HSV Space

4.3 Hole/Margin region detection & de-noising:

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4.4 De-noising of hole/margin regions:

(a) Original image (b) After de-noising the hole/margin regions

(c) Histogram of (a) (d) Histogram of (b) (e) Hole/margin detection

Fig. 5. Results of hole/margin detection and de-noising

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RGB input Adjust contrast TransformW1 Extract channel

4.5 Computation of faded text recovery threshold:

TransformW 2 into Compute faded text Compute faded text

Extract green Binary image Post

Fig. 7. Computation of faded text recovery threshold

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(a) Original image (b) Faded text recovered image

(c) Enlarged section of (a) (d) Enlarged section of (b)

4.6. Post processing:

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(a) Green channel image (b) Final output

Table 1: Dataset details with degradation specifics of palm leaf samples

Severe degradations Moderate degradations Total

5.1 Metrics considered for evaluation:

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(a) (b) (c)

A No visible light + no spatial patterns

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Absolute Central Moments

Gray Level Variance

(a) AL of C1 (b) ACM of C1 (c) GLV of C1

Gray Level Variance

(d) AL of C2 (e) ACM of C2 (f) GLV of C2

(g) AL of C3 (h) ACM of C3 (i) GLV of C3

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Table 2: Performance of state of art methods versus proposed method

C Partial faded text stroke recovery Otsu, Wolf, Wolf, Otsu, -

E A document with dominant light None None None

Table 3: AL of experimented samples - State of art techniques vs. proposed method

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C1 with C1 with C2 with C3 with

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Recognition (IJDAR). 7(2), (2005), 84-104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10032-004-0138-z

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