Tone Mapping Operators Evaluation Based on High Quality Reference Images

Abstract

High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging applications have been commonly placed recently. Several tone mapping operators (TMOs) have been developed which project the HDR radiance range to that of a display. Currently, there is no agreement on a technique for evaluation of tone mapping operators. The goal of this study is to establish a method based on reference images to evaluate the TMOs. Two psychophysical experiments were carried out for the evaluation of tone mapping operators. In the first experiment, a set of high quality images were generated to possess right extents of image features including contrast, colourfulness and sharpness. These images were further used in the second experiment as reference images to evaluate different TMOs. It was found Reinhard's photographic reproduction based on local TMO gave an overall better performance. CIELAB(2:1) and S- CIELAB metrics were also used to judge colour image quality of the same TMOs. It was found that both metrics agreed well with the visual results.