BinarizationShop: a user-assisted software suite for converting old documents to black-and-white

Converting a scanned document to a binary format (black and white) is a key step in the digitization process. While many existing binarization algorithms operate robustly for well-kept documents, these algorithms often produce less than satisfactory results when applied to old documents, especially those degraded with stains and other discolorations. For these challenging documents, user assistance can be advantageous in directing the binarization procedure. Many existing algorithms, however, are poorly designed to incorporate user assistance. In this paper, we discuss a software framework, BinarizationShop, that combines a series of binarization approaches that have been tailored to exploit user assistance. This framework provides a practical approach for converting difficult documents to black and white.