In one aspect, the invention is a method to reduce a blooming effect of a bright object in a medical image generated from a low-dose imaging system. The method includes characterizing an ideal image as a composition of a first component and a second component. The first component is characterized by a first function and the second component is characterized by a second function. The method also includes minimizing the first function and the second function using a smoothing process and generating the medical image based on the minimizing.