Providing a partial column defect map for a full frame image sensor

1. A method for determining defects in an image sensor, which identifies one or more partial column defects, comprising the steps of:

a) capturing a digital image using the image sensor and storing such digital image in a memory;

b) identifying at least one column in the stored digital image which has corrupted data caused by one or more defective pixels in the image sensor;

c) processing the digital image data from the at least one identified column using an extended differentiation filter; and

d) using the output of the extended differentiation filter to identify a starting position or an ending position of the partial column defect.

2. The method of claim 1 further including the step of:

e) providing a defect map which identifies the position of the defective column and the starting or ending position of the partial column defect, so that such defect map can be used in a digital camera to correct the partial column defect.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the output of the extended differentiation filter is compared to a threshold determined from the digital image data of at least one neighboring column which does not include defects.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein step c) includes median filtering the digital image data from the at least one identified column prior to processing the digital image data using the extended differentiation filter.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the image sensor is a color image sensor, and step c) is performed on the separate color plane image data of the at least one identified column.

6. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer program stored thereon for implementing the method of claim 1 .