Enhanced HDR image synthesis using local luminance and activity-adaptive multi-layer tone combination

High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging is the process of compressing a HDR image into a Low Dynamic Range (LDR) image for LDR displays. In most cases, detail preservation takes precedence over tone mapping because the dynamic range differs significantly between the input and output images. But there are disadvantages of color distortion and noise amplification at the object boundary. In this paper, the separated detail signal is combined with the base signal after an adaptive Kalman filter is applied according to local standard deviation. As well, the image is mixed by calculating the appropriate contrast extension factor using the local standard deviation. We confirmed that the proposed method enhances the image quality by checking the noise reduction in the dim surround region and reducing color degradation in the bright region.