Introduction

In the Image Restoration Project carried out at STScI, the restoration quality and scientific usefulness of several restoration algorithms were evaluated in a comparative way by numerical experiments in which a ``perfect'' (or ``truth'') image was artificially degraded, next restored by a given technique, and finally the output was compared with the original. Previous work on this line in the astronomical literature (e.g. Cohen 1991, Thomson et al. 1992) mostly restricted their efforts to the MEMSYS implementation of the Maximum Entropy method. With the availability of other image restoration techniques in public domain format (as in the Space Telescope Science Data Analysis System, STSDAS), as well as a suite of simulated data sets available on the STScI Electronic Information Service (STEIS), more systematic and complete studies were possible.