Context-dependent JPEG backward-compatible high-dynamic range image compression

Abstract

High-dynamic range (HDR) imaging is expected, together with ultrahigh definition and high-frame rate video, to become a technology that may change photo, TV, and film industries. Many cameras and displays capable of capturing and rendering both HDR images and video are already available in the market. The popularity and full-public adoption of HDR content is, however, hindered by the lack of standards in evalu- ation of quality, file formats, and compression, as well as large legacy base of low-dynamic range (LDR) displays that are unable to render HDR. To facilitate the wide spread of HDR usage, the backward compatibility of HDR with commonly used legacy technologies for storage, rendering, and compression of video and images are necessary. Although many tone-mapping algorithms are developed for generating viewable LDR con- tent from HDR, there is no consensus of which algorithm to use and under which conditions. We, via a series of subjective evaluations, demonstrate the dependency of the perceptual quality of the tone-mapped LDR images on the context: environmental factors, display parameters, and image con- tent itself. Based on the results of subjective tests, it proposes to extend JPEG file format, the most popular image format, in a backward compat- ible manner to deal with HDR images also. An architecture to achieve such backward compatibility with JPEG is proposed. A simple implementation of lossy compression demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed archi- tecture compared with the state-of-the-art HDR image compression. © 2013