A new approach for smoothing and fringe normalization is proposed, using Bessel functions of the first kind to fit the intensity distribution, with application for skeletonizing and cancel background illumination in an interferogram. With this approach, high-frequency noise is immunized, and the contrast is enhanced by the computation of fitting coefficients by means of least squares. The new smoothing process works very well also with asymmetric interferograms. Its main advantages are the simplicity of implementation and almost automatic fringe skeletonizing and overcoming the problem of the nonuniformity illumination. © 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). [DOI: 10.1117/1.OE.51.4.045601]