Developments in the theory of image reconstruction and restoration over the past 20 or 30 years are outlined. Particular attention is paid to common estimation structures and to practical problems not properly solved yet. The problem of image reconstruction and restoration is first formulated. Some of the current regularization approaches used to solve the problem are then described. The concepts of a priori information and compound criterion are introduced. A Bayesian interpretation of the regularization techniques is given which clarifies the role of the tuning parameters and indicates how they could be estimated. The practical aspects of computing the solution, first when the hyperparameters are known and second when they must be estimated, are then considered. Conclusions are drawn, and points that still need to be investigated are outlined.< >