Abstract <p>The image de-fencing process is associated with the removal of fence texture and reconstructing the elegant image. The presence of occlusions like fences/barriers is obligatory and undesirable in the images captured by the hand-held cameras or low-resolution sensors. Several algorithms that are addressing the de-fencing problem are presented in the literature. Even though few reviews are available, a comprehensive survey of image de-fencing algorithms is needed since the research efforts are continuing to address this problem. The de-fencing task is usually treated as an image inpainting problem. In this review paper, the available methods are discussed lucidly. The de-fencing methods under the single image and multifocus image categories are discussed elaborately. Further, the fence removal methods for the images acquired using different cameras are analyzed. Finally, the observations concerning the exhaustive literature available and the future directions are postulated.</p>