Disclosed is a method to detect streaks in the scanned documents. The
principle of this method is that the profiles of streaks change very
little from line to line, while profiles of other thin lines, as content
of scanned documents, usually vary in a degree. Therefore, each scan-line
can be searched for streak profiles. Once such a profile is detected, it
is compared with a profile stored in a buffer, which represents a dynamic
average of previously recorded scan-lines. If a stable streak profile is
detected and lasted for a certain length, say one inch, the streak alarm
can be turned on and a corresponding correction process can be applied
for streak removal. With a limited buffer increase and without any major
hardware modification, the proposed method can detect occurrence of
streaks at run time of the scanning process.