Flicker reduction in tone mapped high dynamic range video

In order to display a high dynamic range (HDR) video on a regular low dynamic range (LDR) screen, it needs to be tone mapped. A great number of tone mapping (TM) operators exist – most of them designed to tone map one image at a time. Using them on each frame of an HDR video individually leads to flicker in the resulting sequence. In our work, we analyze three tone mapping operators with respect to flicker. We propose a criterion for the automatic detection of image flicker by analyzing the log average pixel brightness of the tone mapped frame. Flicker is detected if the difference between the averages of two consecutive frames is larger than a threshold derived from Stevens’ power law. Fine-tuning of the threshold is done in a subjective study. Additionally, we propose a generic method to reduce flicker as a post processing step. It is applicable to all tone mapping operators. We begin by tone mapping a frame with the chosen operator. If the flicker detection reports a visible variation in the frame’s brightness, its brightness is adjusted. As a result, the brightness variation is smoothed over several frames, becoming less disturbing.