The Luminance of Subjective Black

The subjective phase of tone reproduction requires a knowledge of how the eye reacts, that is, the visual response under a given set of conditions. Two instruments which have proven useful for obtaining this knowledge are a visual sensitometer and an adaptometer. The particular response investigated and reported is the luminance of subjective black, which may be defined as that value of luminance which is just too low to produce a perceptible visual impression under the luminance distribution existing in the scene being viewed. A fairly simple empirical scheme is proposed for predicting the luminance of subjective black from two easily measured quantities: the luminance of the fixation point and the average scene luminance.

Print ISSN

0361-4573

Published

1956-08

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/J13929