Deprocessing

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The act or process of reversing or undoing a previously applied procedure; the removal or withdrawal of data processing or preparation steps; the elimination of processed elements to restore original or raw conditions
2. A procedure involving the reversal of earlier completed operations; the act of taking apart or negating prior processing steps; the return of material or information to its initial unprocessed state
3. The action of dismantling or undoing prior procedures applied to data, materials, or information; removing processing effects; restoring content to an unmodified or pre-processed form

Etymology: Deprocessing is a plain modern formation: the prefix "de-", meaning "reverse" or "remove," attached to "processing," from "process." The "de-" prefix comes from Latin "de," which carries the sense of undoing or taking away, as in "decode," "defrost," and "deflate." Adding "de-" to an existing verb to mean reversing its action is a productive pattern in English, so "deprocess" as a verb was formed the same way: to undo the processing that something has undergone. The term is most at home in technical fields. In digital photography and image editing, it refers to reversing the adjustments a camera or software has applied to a raw image, such as tone curves or gamma corrections, to recover the original sensor data. In data work, it can mean reconstructing the source form of information after it has been transformed or compressed.

Synonyms: removal, reversal, undoing, dismantling

Antonyms: processing, assembly, construction