Image Enhancement System for the Restoration of Old Jawi Malay Manuscripts using Binarization Method

Abstract

Image enhancement is the process of refining a given image, so that the desired image features become easier to be perceived by the human visual system. Ancient manuscripts from hundreds to thousands of years often are often non-comprehendible condition. Several factors include the age of the manuscript, environmental influence, and ink quality. This includes Malay manuscripts, which are normally written in the Jawi scripts. These documents, which were written from the 16th to 19th century, are in possession to date, however, the quality has been degraded. The purpose of this study is to develop a system to protect historical manuscripts which are in worsening form and also to find solution to reduce image noise. Type of enhancement method employed is binarization or thresholding method. As a result of this study, Image Enhancement System (IES) was easy to use and has a great potential for improvement in future because IES provides high entropy value for enhanced image compared to original image.