PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF FILTERS IN NOISE REMOVAL OF
FINGERPRINT IMAGE
1 2
Ms.K.Kanagalakshmi, Dr.E.Chandra
1
Doctoral Research Scholar, 2 Director, Dept. of Computer Science, DJ Academy Managerial for Excellence,
Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. Email: kkanagalakshmiphd@gmail.com, Email: crcspeech@gmail.com
Abstract--Biometric Identification and Authentication Systems
are in need of a quality image in order to aim at a reliable and
accuracy result. The quality of the fingerprint is obtained by
the noise free images. To get a noise-free fingerprint image,
they are applied under the pre-processing and filtering tasks.
Especially the Fingerprint Recognition system is demanded by
the accuracy factor. This paper made an attempt to evaluate
the filtering techniques in the removal of noises such as
Random Impulsive Noise, Gaussian Noise, Salt & Pepper
Noise, Speckle Noise and Poisson Noise. In this paper,
different filtering techniques such as Average Filtering (AF),
Median Filtering (MF) and Adaptive Weiner Filtering (AWF)
techniques were applied and compared the performance using
a statistical approach called the correlation value. We related
and compared the Noisy image with the each and every
filtered image. We observed the experimental result to identify
the better filtering technique.
Keywords: Noises, Average Filter, Median Filter, Adaptive
Weiner Filter and Correlation
I. INTRODUCTION
Finger print recognition is a gifted feature for the
Biometric identification and authentication systems. The
field of biometric is still in its formative years, its
unavoidable that biometric systems will play a significant
role in the security [1]. A biometric system is fundamentally
a pattern recognition system that functions by obtaining
biometric data from an individual, extracting a feature set
from the obtained data, and evaluating this feature set
against the template set in the database [2]. The biometric
data comprises of fingerprints [3], facial features [4], iris [5],
hand geometry [6], voice [7], and signature [8]. The primary
focus of this research article is to provide to analyze the
performance of filters in fingerprint image. The rest of the
paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the
characteristics. Section 3 provides the knowledge about
noise and their types. In section 4, Filtering Techniques are
discussed. Section 5 gives the comparative analysis of
Average Filter, Median Filter and Adaptive Wiener Filter
through the experimental result and statistical report of the
filtering techniques. Section 6 concludes the paper.
II. FINGERPRINT
Fingerprints were accepted formally as valid personal
identifier in the early twentieth century and have since then
become a de-facto authentication technique in law-
enforcement agencies worldwide. The FBI currently
maintains more than 400 million fingerprint records on file.
978-1-4244 -8679-3/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE
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Fingerprints have several advantages over other
biometrics features, which are as following [11]: High
universality, High distinctiveness, High permanence, Easy
collectability, High performance, Wide acceptability. At the
age of seven months, a fetus' fingerprints are fully developed.
The characteristic of the fingerprint does not change
throughout the lifetime except for injury, disease, or
decomposition after death. However, after a small injury on
the fingertip, the pattern will grow back as the fingertip
heals [11]. It is supposed that fingerprints are distinct across
individuals and across the fingers of a particular individual
[9]. It has been established that even identical twins with
identical DNA possess different fingerprints. Since many
existing fingerprint authentication systems are based on
minutiae points, which are feature points extracted from a
raw fingerprint image. Fingerprint usage can be divided into
three different areas:
Security as identification of individuals.
Forensics, also as an identification method.
Personal characteristics, often involved with
horoscopes and similar non-scientifically proven
prophecies.
The first two are by far the greatest areas. Fingerprint-
based systems, used for security reasons, are so popular
today that they have almost become the synonym for
biometric systems. The formation of the ridges and valleys is
a combination of genetic and environmental factors. The
DNA gives directions in the formation of the skin of the
fetus, but the exact formation of the fingerprint is a
consequence of random events [11]. This is also the reason
why the fingerprints on different finger on the same
individual are different, and why identical twins have
different fingerprints. The Fingerprint features or patterns
are of two types namely local and global. The local features
are Ridge termination, Ridge Island or dot, Lake, Spur and
Crossover. The global features are Core and the Delta points
of fingerprint.
III. NOISES IN FINGERPRINT IMAGE
Digital images are prone to a variety of types of noise.
Noises are undesired distortions in an image. There are
several ways that noise can be introduced into an image,
depending on how the image is created. The following are
the sources of noise in the images:
If the image is scanned from a photograph made on
film, the film grain is a source of noise. Noise can also
 be the result of damage to the film, or be introduced by
the scanner itself.
If the image is acquired directly in a digital format, the
mechanism for gathering the data (such as a CCD
detector) can introduce noise.
Electronic transmission of image data can introduce
noise.
Types of Noise: The noises are of different types. They
are:
1. Random Variation Impulsive Noise (Gaussian noise):
This kind of noises randomly occurs as white intensity
values. This is called Gaussian noise.
2. Salt & Pepper Noise: It is the occurrence of both black
and white intensity values and they are caused by the
threshold of noise image.
3. Speckle Noise: If the multiplicative noise is added in the
image, speckle noise is a ubiquitous artifact that limits the
interpretation of optical coherence of remote sensing image.
4. Poisson Noise: Poisson noise or shot noise is a type of
electronic noise that occurs when the finite number of
particles that carry energy, such as electrons in an electronic
circuit or photons in an optical device, is small enough to
give rise to detectable statistical fluctuations in a
measurement.
IV. FILTERING TECHNIQUES
There are different ways to remove or reduce noise in an
image. Different methods are better for different kinds of
noise. The methods considered for study are:
Average filtering
Median filtering
Adaptive Wiener Filtering
A. Average Filtering
Average filter is a linear Filter. We can use linear
filtering to remove certain types of noise. Certain filters,
such as averaging or Gaussian filters, are appropriate for this
purpose. For example, an averaging filter is useful for
removing grain noise from a photograph. Because each pixel
gets set to the average of the pixels in its neighborhood,
local variations caused by grain are reduced but with
blurring of edges.
B. Median Filtering
Median Filter is a non-linear smoothing method that
reduces the blurring of edges, in which the idea is to replace
the current point in the image by the median of the
brightness in its neighborhood. Individual noise spikes do
not affect the median of the brightness in the neighborhood
and so median smoothing eliminates impulse noise quite
well. Median filtering is similar to using an averaging filter,
in that each output pixel is set to an "average" of the pixel
values in the neighborhood of the corresponding input pixel.
However, with median filtering, the value of an output pixel
is determined by the median of the neighborhood pixels,
rather than the mean. The median is much less sensitive than
the mean to extreme values (called outliers). Median
filtering is therefore better able to remove these outliers
without reducing the sharpness of the image. It removes salt
and pepper noise. This type of noise consists of random
pixels being set to black or white (the extremes of the data
range). In both cases the size of the neighborhood used for
filtering is 3-by-3. It is a rank-selection (RS) filter, a
particularly harsh member of the family of rank-conditioned
rank-selection (RCRS) filters[12];a much milder member of
that family, for example one that selects the closest of the
neighboring values when a pixel's value is external in its
neighborhood, and leaves it unchanged otherwise, is
sometimes preferred, especially in photographic applications.
Advantage: It is better in removing noise such as Salt &
Pepper noise from an image. It requires less time for
computation.
Disadvantage: It causes little blurring of edges.
C. Adaptive Wiener Filter
Adaptive Wiener Filter is a better performance filter. It
performs the smoothening. It is varied from the local
variance of an image. If the local variance is large then it
performs only little smoothing; if the variance is small, then
performs more smoothing.
Advantage: It provides better result than other linear
filtering techniques. It offers the preservation of edges and
other high- frequency part of an image.
Disadvantages: It requires more computation time than
others.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A. Experimental Tasks
Recognition of Fingerprint becomes a complex computer
problem while dealing with noise or low quality images [10].
Fingerprint image preprocessing is an essential task to get a
good quality image for further process. The Fingerprint
preprocessing results the noise-free image that gives the
accuracy. The aim of the preprocessing is to improve the
image data that suppresses the undesired distortions or
enhances some image features, which are important for
further processing. Initially, the experiment starts with the
preprocessing tasks include the Image Histogram,
Binarization and Filtering.
The algorithmic representation of preprocessing tasks is
given below.
different main tasks such as histogram, binarizatioussed
1. Read the fingerprint image from the external Fingerprint
Reader (I).
2. Generate histogram for the Original Image (HI).
3. Binarize the original gray-scale image to get binary image
that is black and white image (BI).
4. Implement the filtering in the Binarized image [QI=F (BI)].
5. Get a Good Quality image as an output (QI).
Task 1: Image Histogram
The brightness transformation modifies pixel brightness
of the input image is named as histogram. The
transformation depends on the properties of a pixel itself.
There are two classes of pixel brightness transformations:
 Brightness corrections: It modifies pixel brightness,
taking into account; its original brightness and its
position in the image.
Gray-scale Transformations: Changes brightness
without regard to position in the image.
In our experiment we find the histogram of the input
fingerprint image. Figure 1 shows the original and their
histogram, which gets the increased brightness than the
original image for the better understating of the individual
pixels. Procedure to compute the brightness histogram is
shown below:
Procedure for Histogram:
1. Assign zero for all elements of the array
h.
2. For all pixels (x, y) of the image f,
external fingerprint reader, which occupies 350304 bytes
that is under the histogram equalization. Further the
histogram equalized gray-scale [0-255] image is converted
into the binary [0, 1] image (356x328) (called Binarization).
Finally, the image was added different types of noises and
filtered the noisy image using a Linear and non-linear filters
(AF, MF, and AWF) which results the noise filtered image
(356x328) with 116768 bytes. The final output could be
obtained as a purified cum filtered image which uncovers
Random Impulsive noise. The original captured image,
binarised, and filtered image are shown in the figure 3. The
statistical -correlation uses the following procedure to
calculate the correlation value of the two images.
(Amn A` ) ( Bmn B`)
m n
r= (1)
(Amn A` ) ( Bmn B`)
2 2

increment h[f(x, y)] by 1. m n

Original F ingerpri nt Im age

Where A= Original (Noisy) Image, B= Filtered Image, m, n = size of the

Images; A`= Mean (A) and B`= Mean (B).

Experimental results which show the different noises

(a) (b)
added and eliminated in the original image using all the
three filtering techniques. The results are cumulated below.
Figure 1 a) Original Fingerprint Image b) Histogram of the Original Image

Task 2: Binarization RESULT 1:

Original Fi nger pr int Image Aver age F iltered Im age

The captured fingerprint image is as a gray-scale image

[range 0 255]. Binarization is the process of transforming
the Gray-scale image into the binary image [0, 1]. The gray- (a) (b)
scale transformations do not depend on the position of the Median Filtered Im age Adapti ve W iener Fi ltered Im age

pixel in the image. The original and the binarized image are
shown below (see fig. 2).
Original Fingerprint Image Binar ised Im age

(c) (d)
Figure 3 Random Impulsive Noise Elimination: a) Original Fingerprint
Image b) Average Filtered Image c) Median Filtered Image d) Adaptive
Wiener Filtered Image.
(a) (b) Table I and Figure 4 show the Correlation of original and the random
Figure 2 a) Original Gray-scale Image b) Binarized Image impulsive noise filtered images.

Task 3: Filtering TABLE I CORRELATION BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL AND

Initially we applied all the three filtering techniques on FILTERED IMAGE USING THREE FILTERING TECHNIQUES
the originally captured fingerprint image and got the filtered Filter Correlation Value
fingerprint image; and we compared the original and the
Average Filter 0.8074
filtered image using a statistical tool called correlation factor.
Secondly we produced all the types of noises on the Median Filter 0.9044
originally captured image and applied the three filtering Adaptive Wiener Filter 0.8865
techniques namely Average Filter (AF), Median Filter (MF)
and Adaptive Wiener Filter (AWF) individually in the Co r r e lat io n b e t w e
e n
Or ig in al & Filt e r e

fingerprint image; and performed the correlation between d

Fing e r pr in t Im ag e
( Rando m
V ar iat io n Im p u ls ive No
is e
Re m o
val)

the Original-Noise added image and the noise eliminated

0 .9 5

0 .9

image (Filtered Image). The experimental results are shown

0 .8 5

0.8

in the next section.

0 .7 5

Age
v er Me di a n Fi l t er A dapt i v e
a

B. Experimental Results
Wi e n e r Fi l t er
Fi l t er
F i l t e r s

This section describes the experimental steps and results

obtained. The preprocessing and filtering techniques were Figure 4 Correlation of the Original and Filtered Image after the
implemented using the MATLAB (MATLAB 6.5). We Elimination of random Impulsive Noise
obtained the input fingerprint image (356 x 328x3) from the
 Gaussi an Noi se added Image Gu a s ian N o ise re mo v a l u sin g W e iner F ilte r

C o rre la t io n b e t we e n S a lt & P e p p e r N o is e a d
de d
Im a g e a n d filt e d im a g
(a) (b) 1
e
Guas ian Noise r emoval using Average Filter
Guasian N oise removal using Median Fi lter

0.95
0 .9
0.85
0 .8
0.75

(c) (d) A v e ra g e F ilt e r M e d ia n F ilt e r A d a p t iv e

Wie n e r F ilt e r
Figure 5 a) Gaussian Noise Added Image b) Average Filtered Image c) F it le rs
Median Filtered Image d) Adaptive Wiener Filtered Image

RESULT 2: Figure 8 Correlation between Salt & Pepper Noise Added Image & Salt &
In the second attempt, we added the Gaussian Noise in Pepper Noise Filtered Image
the original image and applied all three filters. Figure 5 RESULT 4:
shows the Gaussian Noise addition in the original image and In experiment 4, the Speckle Noises were added in the
elimination of the same using the three filters. The Table II original image and eliminated the same using the three
and Figure 6 show the Correlation of Gaussian Noisy Image filters. The correlation values and their visual
and the Gaussian noise filtered images. representations are shown below (see Figure 9, Table IV,
Figure 10).
Av erage Fi ltered Image (Speckle Noise Remov al)

TABLE II CORRELATION BETWEEN THE GAUSSIAN NOISY

Spec kle N ois e Added Image

IMAGE AND NOISE FILTERED IMAGE USING THREE FILTERING

TECHNIQUES
Filter Correlation factor
(a) (b)
Average Filter 0.7812 Median Fi ltered Image (Speckl e Noi se Removal) Adaptive Filtered Image (Speckl e Nois e R emov al)

Median Filter 0.8865

Adaptive Wiener Filter 0.8865

Cor r e lat io n b e t w e
e n Or igin al an d Filt
e r e d Fin g e r p r in t
Im age (c) (d)
( Gau s s ian No is e Re m o
val) Figure 9 (a) Original Image (b) Speckle Noise Added Image (c) Average
Filtered Image (d) Median Filtered Image (e) Adaptive Wiener Filtered
0. 9
0 .8 5
Image.
0 .8
0. 75
0 .7

TABLE IV CORRELATION BETWEEN SPECKLE NOISE ADDED

A v er ag e Medi an A dapt i v
Fi l t er Fi l t er e Wi en e r

F i l t e r
Fi l t er
IMAGE SPECKLE NOISE FILTERED IMAGE
s

Figure 6 Correlations between the Original-Noisy and Filtered Image after

Filters Correlation Value
the Elimination of Gaussian Noise
Average Filter 0.8538
RESULT 3: Median Filter 0.9605
In experiment 3, we produced the Salt & Pepper Noises Adaptive Wiener Filter 0.9606
and eliminated the same. The correlation values and their
visual representations are shown below (see Figure 7, Table Cor r e lation be tw e e n Spe ck le Nois e Adde d

III, Figure 8).

Sal t & Pepper Noise Added Image Average F ilter ed Im age (Salt&pepper Noise Rem oval)

Im age and Filte r e d Im age

0.95

0.9
0.85

0.8
(a) (b)
A v er age Fi l t er Medi an Fi l t er Adapt i v e Wi ener Fi
Median Fil tered Image (Sal t&pepper Noise Rem oval) Adaptive Fil ter ed Image ( Salt&pepper N oise Removal )

0.75 l t er

Filt er s

Figure 10 Correlation between Speckle Noises Added Image & Speckle

(c ) (d) Noise Filtered Image
Figure 7 (a) Salt & Pepper Noise Added Image (b) Average Filtered
Image (c) Median Filtered Image (d) Adaptive Wiener Filtered Image.
RESULT 5:
TABLE III CORRELATION BETWEEN SALT & PEPPER NOISE In experiment 5, the Poisson Noises were added in the
ADDED IMAGE AND ALT & PEPPER NOISE FILTERED IMAGE original image and eliminated the same using the three
filters. The correlation values and their visual
Filters Correlation Value representations are shown below (see Figure 11, Table V,
Average Filter 0.8470 Figure 12).
Median Filter 0.9496
Adaptive Wiener Filter 0.9536
 TABLE V CORRELATION BETWEEN POISSON NOISE ADDED
IMAGE AND POISSON NOISE FILTERED IMAGE VI. CONCLUSION
The need of fingerprint verification system leads the
Filters Correlation Value quality factor. We discussed the fingerprint characteristics;
and made comparative evaluations on the three filters (AF,
Average Filter 0.8150
MF, and AWF) by experimental task to know the better
Median Filter 0.9183
Adaptive Wiener Filter 0.9305
filtering technique. We created 10 lively- scanned noisy
images by corrupting all the images with Speckle, Gaussian,
Average F ilter ed Im age ( Poisson Noise Rem oval)

Salt & Pepper and Passion Noises; and applied Average

Filter, Median filter and adaptive wiener filter. We observed
Poiss on Nois e Adde d Im age

that the median filter can be a better filtering with less

Adaptive Filter ed Im ag e

Rem oval)
(b )
( Po isson Noise
computational time than all other filters.
(a)
Median Filtered Im age ( Poisson Nois e Removal)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Author acknowledges her thanks to her guide for the proper
(c ) (d) guidance and the valuable support in the research. She would like
Figure 11 (a) Poisson Noise Added Image (b) Average Filtered Image (c) to thank her Secretary, Principal, and all faculty members for their
Median Filtered Image (d) Adaptive Wiener Filtered Image. precious support. Finally she extends her gratitude to the members
C o r r e l a t i o n B e t w e e n t he P o i s s o n N o i s e A
of family for the moral support.
d d ed
I ma g e a nd N o i se F i l t er ed I
ma g e

0.98

0.96

0.94

0.92

0.9
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0.88

0.86
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0.84

0.82
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Figure 13 Computational Time comparisons of three filters: Performance
Analysis chart

TABLE VI COMPARISON OF COMPUTATIONAL TIME AMONG THE THREE FILTERS

WITH THE CLOCK SPEED OF 2805 MHZ AND THE CLOCK PRECISION 0.00000004S.
Filters Computational Time for Speckle Computational Time for Gaussian Computational Time for Salt & Pepper Computational Time for Poisson
Noise elimination Noise Elimination Noise Elimination Noise Elimination
(Total Recorded Time :1.53s) (Total Recorded Time: 1.00s) (Total Recorded Time: 0.75 s) (Total Recorded Time: 0.86s )
Time Self Time Time Self Time Time Self Time Time Self Time
Average Filter 0.14100000s 0.14100000s 0.07900000s (7.9 %) 0.07900000s 0.06300000s (8.4% ) 0.06300000s 0.07800000s (9.1 %) 0.07800000s
(9.2%)
Median Filter 0.06200000s 0.01500000s 0.06300000s (6.3%) 0.00000000s 0.03100000s (4.1 %) 0.00000000s 0.03100000s (3.6 %) 0.00000000s
(4.1 %)
Adaptive 0.21900000s 0.06200000s 0.12500000s 0.01600000s 0.12500000s (16.7 %) 0.04600000s 0.12500000s 0.03200000s
Wiener Filter (14.3 %) (12.5 %) (14.5 %)