Abstract: Aiming at the shortcomings  of gradient-domain tone mapping methods in subjective display performance, we proposed a luminance-gradient co-guidance tone mapping algorithm based on Retinex theory by  using the perceptual ability of the human visual system  and the gradient-domain method. Firstly, a domain-aware adaptive  normalization  method was proposed to construct normalized mappings for different domain algorithms. Secondly, a Retinex luminance guidance term was introduced to estimate the background luminance, and the dynamic range of the image was compressed based on the gradient guidance term. Finally, the luminance and gradient guidance terms were combined for unified modeling, and the exponential mean local variance weight was used to suppress halos. The experimental results show that the algorithm suppresses oversaturation and artifacts while compressing the dynamic range, and  has good visual effects and robustness.

Key words: high dynamic range image, tone mapping, Retinex theory, image reconstruction