1. A fast dense patch search method, comprising: obtaining by a computing device and from storage example image patches that are taken from example images; determining, from partitions of the example image patches and by the computing device, partition center patches for the partitions of example image patches, the example image patches in a partition being similar, one example image patch to another, a partition center patch determined to represent the example image patches of the partition; obtaining by the computing device an input digital image; forming patch groups by the computing device that each include similar image patches of the input digital image and a reference image patch that represents the similar image patches in a respective patch group; determining which of the partition center patches of the partitions of the example image patches by the computing device is a nearest neighbor to the reference image patch of a patch group; allocating the determined partition center patch by the computing device as the nearest neighbor to the similar image patches of the input digital image in the patch group; and outputting the allocated patch.