A HDR Image Compression Algorithm Based on Non-Linear Masking

High Dynamic Range Images, with the capability of reproducing the wide lightness range of natural scenes, has been widely used in many areas. But the restrictions of device capability make it necessary to implement tone compression for displaying HDR images. The major research of this paper includes: ① the non-linear masking technology was analyzed and applied to the HDR image tone compression for the first time; ② the specific workflow of the HDR image compression algorithm based on non-linear masking was proposed; ③ VDP (Visible Difference Predictor) model was used to evaluate the performance of the algorithm objectively. The result of algorithm evaluation shows: the non-linear masking can achieve a good effect of tone compression, and greatly reduce the complexity of the algorithm.