In this paper two new recursive approaches are presented to correct for attenuation effects in fluorescent confocal microscopy, caused by absorption and scattering. The methods are based on a slice by slice processing of the three dimensional image using the result of the last processed layer to update the extinction information for correcting the next image plane. The first approach, Recursive Attenuation Correction using Directional Extinction Tracking (RAC-DET), takes all directional extinction information into account, resulting in an accurate estimate of the original fluorescence distribution. By making additional assumptions about the imaging process a second approach taking into account only the extinction of the excitation is proposed: Recursive Attenuation Correction using Light front Tracking (RAC-LT). Although correction accuracy is lower, computation times are greatly reduced such that an iterative scheme to estimate the extinction coefficient constant from the data becomes feasible for biological applications.