Content-aware image compression method

A method, comprising:

• decoding an encoded downscaled input image;
• non-uniformly upscaling the decoded, encoded, and downscaled input image;
• decoding an encoded residual image;
• and
• adding the decoded residual image to the upscaled input image to obtain a reconstructed image.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having computer executable program code embodied thereon, the computer executable program code configured to cause a computing device to:

• non-uniformly downscale an original input image according to a saliency map;
• create a residual image using the original input image and the downscaled input image;
• encode the residual image;
• and
• encode the downscaled input image to produce an encoded downscaled input image.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having computer executable program code embodied thereon, the computer executable program code configured to cause a computing device to:

• decode an encoded downscaled input image;
• non-uniformly upscale the decoded, encoded, and downscaled input image;
• decode an encoded residual image;
• and
• add the decoded residual image to the upscaled input image to obtain a reconstructed image.