1. A method of correcting an artifact in a virtual image synthesized from stereo images, the method comprising: detecting the artifact in the virtual image based on a disparity map of the stereo images; designating a source patch relative to the artifact in the virtual image; generating a target patch as a composite of a background exemplar patch and a foreground exemplar patch, each exemplar patch being identified from an image patch from at least one of the stereo images; and replacing the source patch of the virtual image with the target patch.