Process for creating image gathers

A process comprising:

• obtaining seismic data by deploying a seismic energy source and seismic receivers, actuating the source, and detecting seismic energy reflected from a plurality of subsurface positions resulting therefrom at the receivers;
• forming a plurality of traces by digitally sampling the seismic energy detected at the receivers and indexing the seismic energy with respect to time;
• sorting the traces to form a plurality of shot gathers;
• applying a depth migration technique to the shot gathers to generate two images according to the cross-correlation imaging condition (I0) and the gradient-based imaging condition (I1) for each shot gather;
• converting the images to reflector dip angle domain;
• computing a general domain parameter a at each subsurface position, wherein a general domain parameter is computed using the following formula:
• α
• =
• ⁢
• c
• 0
• 2
• c
• s
• ⁢
• c
• r
• ⁢
• cos
• ⁡
• (
• θ
• )
• =
• ⁢
• I
• 1
• /
• I
• 0
• wherein c0 is a phase velocity along a symmetry axis, and cs and cr are a phase velocities of the source and receiver wave fields respectively;
• mapping the images according to the corresponding general domain parameter to form common image gathers;
• transforming the images to space domain;
• applying amplitude correction to common image gathers;
• and
• storing the images and common image gathers on non-transitory computer-readable media.