[Python] How can I improve the quality of contour detection in OpenCV?

I'm using OpenCV to detect contours in an image, but I'm not getting clean or accurate results. The contours are often noisy, incomplete, or merged together. I'm looking for suggestions or best practices to improve the quality of contour detection.

Here's my current code:

import cv2
# Step 1: Read the image
img = cv2.imread('input.jpg')
img_copy = img.copy()

# Step 2: Convert to Grayscale
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)

# Step 3: Apply Binary Thresholding
_, binary = cv2.threshold(gray, 127, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)

# Step 4: Find Contours (correct retrieval mode)
contours, _ = cv2.findContours(binary, cv2.RETR_EXTERNAL, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)

cv2.drawContours(img_copy, contours, -1, (0, 255, 0), 2)

# Step 7: Show results
cv2.imshow("Contours", img_copy)
cv2.waitKey(0)
cv2.destroyAllWindows()


What are the best practices or preprocessing steps to get cleaner, more accurate contours?

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