<title>Perceived overall contrast and quality of the tone scale rendering for natural images</title>

Abstract

Past research has demonstrated the complexity of perceived contrast as an attribute of natural images. This attribute is affected by the tone reproduction characteristics in an imaging system, the observer's viewing environment, and the scene itself. Development of digital photography with new tools to affect tone reproduction prompts the necessity for further insights into parameters that influence the perception of contrast to computationally predict and optimize this attribute for a large variety of individual images. To elucidate the relationship between perceived overall contrast and image properties, we performed a series of experiments where observers estimated perceived overall contrast, defined as an integrated impression of difference in lightness, for images of natural scenes presented on a monitor screen. The ratings were used to develop a computational prediction based on assessment of features, which hypothetically could be used by the subjects' visual system when evaluating perceived overall contrast.© (2002) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.