Multi exposure fusion for high dynamic range imaging via multi-channel gradient tensor

Multi-exposure fusion (MEF) is an effective technique for directly fusing a sequence of low dynamic range (LDR) images from a high dynamic range (HDR) natural scene. The goal is to generate an information enriched LDR image. Despite its effectiveness, current MEF methods often encounter issues such as detail loss and color degradation. Additionally, existing algorithms often struggle to balance image quality and computation time, particularly for large-sized images. This paper introduces an innovative MEF algorithm that address these challenges, offering improved performance and computational time across all image sizes. The algorithm employs a multi-channel gradient tensor on RGB images to effectively capture the contrast information among the three channels. This mechanism allows an edge-preserving image filter to maintain edges while smoothing weight maps. To enhance computational efficiency, the algorithm uses a fast approximation method suitable for large sized images. Our comprehensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms existing MEF techniques both quantitatively and qualitatively. Furthermore, our method reduces computational time by approximately 30% compared to the most recent state-of-the-art techniques.