Single image‐based HDR image generation with camera response function estimation

Abstract

The high performance of high dynamic range (HDR) image and the limitations of sensors impel to acquire HDR images from low dynamic range (LDR) ones. The most popular methods use multiple LDR images with different exposures of the same scene as input. However, it is difficult to have multiple exposures for most of LDR images. The authors propose a single image-based method to generate HDR image based on camera response function (CRF) reconstruction. The method first estimates the CRF according to the empirical model and the input LDR image. Then, the empirical model of the inverse CRF is constructed according to the relationship between the derivatives of CRF and its inverse function; the optimal solution of inverse CRF is obtained depending on the imaging properties of the edge pixels. Finally, the HDR image is generated by performing the inverse CRF on the original LDR image. The imitation of imaging procedure inherently makes the final HDR image high quality. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach expand image from the dark and bright regions simultaneously. The resulting metric images also illustrate that their proposed method causes lower total contrast error compared with other single image-based methods.