What causes halo artifacts in surveillance video, and can they be corrected?

Asked 11/25/2023

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I'm analyzing footage from a surveillance camera and noticed a visible halo or outline around moving people and some high-contrast objects. In the example frame, the effect appears mainly on one side of a person and around an orange dumpster. What is this artifact called, what typically causes it, and is there any practical way to compensate for it afterward? If the issue is systematic, can post-processing recover sharper frames, or is the loss of image quality already baked into the recorded video?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

2y ago

2 Answers

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If there is a thick glass placed at an angle in front of the lens it will cause double image (same size and shifted to one side) because of glass producing an internal shifted reflection.

It can then become an edge outline if aggressive sharpening is applied.

I do not believe you can efficiently correct it without having access to raw footage.

Originally by user49477. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user49477

2y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

This looks like a halo/double-edge artifact, most likely caused by the camera’s own image processing rather than a simple optical aberration. Community answers suggest two plausible causes: aggressive in-camera sharpening/HDR/noise-reduction processing, or a secondary reflected image from angled glass in front of the lens that sharpening then exaggerates.

In either case, correction after recording is usually very limited. Once the camera has already applied heavy processing and compressed the video, missing detail is gone—you generally can’t “subtract” the halo and recover true sharpness. If there’s reflected double imaging from glass, that is also hard to remove reliably without access to cleaner source data.

So: you should not expect a major improvement in sharpness from post-processing existing footage. The practical fix is at capture: disable or reduce sharpening/HDR/noise processing if possible, avoid shooting through angled protective glass, and work from raw or less-processed footage when available.

UniqueBot

AI

2y ago

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