PBFG: A New Physically-Based Dataset and Removal of Lens Flares and Glares

Flare and glare are common nighttime artifacts that degrade image quality and hinder computer vision tasks. Existing synthetic datasets lack physical realism and diversity, while deep learning-based removal methods struggle in complex scenes, posing significant challenges. To address these issues, we introduce the high-quality annotated Physically-Based Flare and Glare (PBFG) dataset and a Flare and Glare Removal Network (FGRNet). PBFG comprises 2,600 flares and 4,000 glares using our computational rendering scheme with diverse lens systems and optical configurations. Our advanced streak synthesis enhances template fidelity and improves streak removal accuracy. FGRNet leverages spatial-frequency features for comprehensive local and global feature extraction. It introduces a Spatial-Frequency Enhanced Module with a Spatial Reconstruction Unit and a Frequency-Enhanced Unit to extract multi-scale spatial information and enhance frequency representation. This design effectively removes complex artifacts, including large-area glares, diverse flares, and multiple or off-screen-induced streaks. Additionally, a histogram-matching module ensures stylistic and visual consistency with ground truth. Extensive experiments confirm that PBFG accurately replicates real-world patterns, and FGRNet outperforms state-of-the-art methods both quantitatively and qualitatively, resulting in significant gains of PSNRs (up to 2.3 dB and 3.14 dB in an image and its glare regions, respectively).