Title

Do HDR displays support LDR content? a psychophysical evaluation

Authors

Authors

A. G. Akyuz; R. Fleming; B. E. Riecke; E. Reinhard;H. H. Buthoff

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

Abbreviated Journal Title

ACM Trans. Graph.

Keywords

high dynamic range (HDR) imaging; high dynamic range display devices; tone mapping; psychophysics; TONE MAPPING OPERATORS; DYNAMIC-RANGE DISPLAY; IMAGES; Computer Science, Software Engineering

Abstract

The development of high dynamic range (HDR) imagery has brought us to the verge of arguably the largest change in image display technologies since the transition from black-and-white to color television. Novel capture and display hardware will soon enable consumers to enjoy the HDR experience in their own homes. The question remains, however, of what to do with existing images and movies, which are intrinsically low dynamic range (LDR). Can this enormous volume of legacy content also be displayed effectively on HDR displays? We have carried out a series of rigorous psychophysical investigations to determine how LDR images are best displayed on a state-of-the-art HDR monitor, and to identify which stages of the HDR imaging pipeline are perceptually most critical. Our main findings are: (1) As expected, HDR displays outperform LDR ones. (2) Surprisingly, HDR images that are tone-mapped for display on standard monitors are often no better than the best single LDR exposure from a bracketed sequence. (3) Most importantly of all, LDR data does not necessarily require sophisticated treatment to produce a compelling HDR experience. Simply boosting the range of an LDR image linearly to fit the HDR display can equal or even surpass the appearance of a true HDR image. Thus the potentially tricky process of inverse tone mapping can be largely circumvented.

Journal Title

Acm Transactions on Graphics

Volume

26

Issue/Number

3

Publication Date

1-1-2007

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Language

English

First Page

7

WOS Identifier

WOS:000248914000041

ISSN

0730-0301

Share

COinS