Image acquisition apparatus and method employing lens array

An image acquisition method used by an image acquisition apparatus comprising an image sensor, comprising a microlens and a plurality of pixels arranged adjacent to each other and sharing the microlens, the image acquisition method comprising:

• performing a white balance processing on an input image acquired by the image sensor;
• after the performing the white balance processing, generating a plurality of parallax images by extracting and combining sub-images having a same parallax from the input image;
• demosaicing images by interpolating a color value of an empty pixel for each of the plurality of parallax images by using color values of surrounding pixels;
• generating, by an upsampling unit, a plurality of upsampled images by upsampling each of the interpolated parallax images to an input image size;
• and
• image-synthesizing comprising generating an output image by weighted-summing one upsampled image selected from the upsampled images and the other upsampled images based on a similarity therebetween.