High dynamic range Imaging for digital still camera

The paper presents a collection of methods and algorithms able to deal with high dynamic range of real pictures acquired by digital engines (e.g. CCD/CMOS cameras). Accurate image acquisition can be not well suited under difficult light conditions. A few techniques that overcome the usual 8 bit-depth representations by using differently exposed pictures and recovering the original radiance values are reported. This allows capturing both low and highlight details, fusing the various pictures into a single map, thus providing a more faithful description of what the real world scene was. However in order to be viewed on a common computer monitor the map needs to be re-quantized while preserving visibility of details. The main problem comes from the fact that usually the contrast of the radiance values is far greater than that of the display device. Various related techniques are reviewed and discussed.