Image Attributes and Quality for Evaluation of Tone Mapping Operators
Proceedings of
Pacific Conference on Computer Graphics and Applications, pp. 35-44, 2006
The problem of reproducing high dynamic range images on devices with restricted dynamic range has gained a lot of interest in the computer graphics community. There exist various approaches to this issue, which span several research areas including computer graphics, image processing, color science, physiology, neurology, psychology, etc. These approaches assume a thorough knowledge of both the objective and subjective attributes of an image. However, no comprehensive overview and analysis of such attributes has been published so far. In this paper, we present an overview of image quality attributes of different tone mapping methods. Furthermore, we propose a scheme of relationships between these attributes, leading to the de?nition of an overall image quality measure. We present results of subjective psychophysical tests that we have performed to prove the proposed relationship scheme. We also present the evaluation of existing tone mapping methods with regard to these attributes. Our effort is not just useful to get into the tone mapping ?eld or when implementing a tone mapping operator, but it also sets the stage for well-founded quality comparisons between tone mapping operators. By providing good de?nitions of the different attributes, user-driven or fully automatic comparisons are made possible at all.