Hierarchical tone mapping based on image colour appearance model

To solve the problem of low efficiency and poor effect of the current tone mapping methods for the high dynamic range images, the authors propose a hierarchical tone mapping algorithm based on colour appearance model. The discrete Gaussian kernel is used to speed up the bilateral filter. The operation of tone compression in RGB colour space is adopted to correct the colour casts. The extreme values of the pixels are also adjusted in the detail layer. Moreover, after the tone mapping, the colour saturation is enhanced in the image regions of rich details and sharp edges. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm with less computational cost reduces the halo effect significantly, and achieves the natural colour and the rich details. It outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of visual quality and objective indicators.