Image processing device and display device having the same

A display device comprising:

• a display panel comprising:
• a plurality of gate lines;
• a plurality of data lines;
• and
• a plurality of pixels, wherein each of the pixels is connected to a corresponding gate line of the gate lines and a corresponding data line of the data lines;
• a gate driver which drives the gate lines;
• a data driver which drives the data lines;
• and
• a timing controller which receives an image signal, applies a data signal and a first control signal to the data driver, and applies a second control signal to the gate driver,
• wherein the timing controller comprises an image processing device which converts the image signal to the data signal, and
• wherein the image processing device comprises:
• a first low-pass filter which filters the image signal to output a first image signal using a first cut-off frequency;
• a max filter which receives the image signal and outputs an image signal having the largest gray scale value among the image signals corresponding to a predetermined pixel and a plurality of peripheral pixels adjacent to the predetermined pixel as a second image signal;
• a second low-pass filter which receives the second image signal from the max filter and filters the second image signal to output a third image signal using a second cut-off frequency;
• a high-pass filter which receives the third image signal from the second low-pass filter and filters the third image signal to output a fourth image signal;
• and
• an image synthesizer which synthesizes the first image signal from the first low-pass filter and the fourth image signal from the high-pass filter to output a data signal,
• wherein the second cut-off frequency of the second low-pass filter is lower than the first cut-off frequency of the first low-pass filter.

A method of processing an image, the method comprising:

• converting an image signal to a gray scale image signal;
• outputting a first image signal by performing a first low-pass filtering by a first low pass filter on the gray scale image signal using a first cut-off frequency;
• outputting a second image signal by performing a max filtering on the gray scale image signal;
• outputting a third image signal by performing a second low-pass filtering by a second low pass filter on the second image signal using a second cut-off frequency;
• outputting a fourth image signal by performing a high-pass filtering on the third image signal;
• and
• synthesizing the first image signal, which is directly output from the first low pass filter, and the fourth image signal to generate a data signal,
• wherein the outputting the second image signal by performing the max filtering on the image signal comprises outputting an image signal having the largest gray scale value among image signals corresponding to a predetermined pixel and a plurality of peripheral pixels adjacent to the predetermined pixel as the second image signal, and
• wherein the second cut-off frequency of the second low-pass filtering is lower than the first cut-off frequency of the first low-pass filtering.