Enhancing unsharp masking with guided filtering and local contrast enhancement for improved perceptual quality

This paper provides a multistep image enhancement scheme that improves upon traditional unsharp masking using guided filtering and contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization. The approach attempts to overcome conventional sharpening tool limitations: halo artifacts, noise amplification, and detail loss—through local contrast enhancement, multipass adaptive sharpening, and edge-aware smoothing. Guided filtering preserves structural boundaries, while CLARE improves visibility in low-contrast areas. A final bilateral filtering constrains the noise from the previous stages without affecting edge clarity. The experimental results evidently showed applications where perceptual improvement and structural integrity of various degraded image types are paramount.