Best Algorithms for HDR Image Generation. A Study of Performance Bounds

Since the seminal work of Mann and Picard in 1995, the standard way to build high dynamic range (HDR) images from regular cameras has been to combine a reduced number of photographs captured with different exposure times. The algorithms proposed in the literature differ in the strategy used to combine these frames. Several experimental studies comparing their performances have been reported, showing in particular that a maximum likelihood estimation yields the best results in terms of mean squared error. However, no theoretical study aiming at establishing the performance limits of the HDR estimation problem has been conducted. Another common aspect of all HDR estimation approaches is that they discard saturated values. In this paper, we address these two issues. More precisely, we derive theoretical bounds for the performance of unbiased estimators for the HDR estimation problem. The unbiasedness hypothesis is motivated by the fact that most of the existing estimators, among them the best performing and ...

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