A classic photographic task is the mapping of the potentially high dynamic range of real world luminances to the low dynamic range of the photographic print. This tone reproduction problem is also faced by computer graphics practitioners who map digital images to a low dynamic range print or screen. The work presented in this paper leverages the time-tested techniques of photographic practice to develop a new tone reproduction operator. In particular, we use and extend the techniques developed by Ansel Adams to deal with digital images. The resulting algorithm is simple and produces good results for a wide variety of images.

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Abstract–An algorithm for blending multiple-exposure images of a scene into an image with maximum information content is introduced. The algorithm partitions the image domain into subimages and for each subimage selects the image that contains the most information about the subimage. The selected images are then blended together using monotonically decreasing blending functions that are centered at the subimages and have a sum of 1 everywhere in the image domain. The optimal subimage size and width of blending functions are determined in a gradient-ascent algorithm that maximizes image information. The proposed algorithm reduces dynamic range while preserving local color and contrast. Index Terms–High-dynamic range image, image blending, image information, color image, multiple-exposure image 1