Output Transform Tone Scale

Unless I misunderstood what you are trying to say, isn’t it already something we can do (and do) with ACES? It is a scenario that was deemed highly non-desirable. The inverse + forward approach is subject to many issues WRT precision, e.g. quantization, especially with a LUT implementation, and performance, i.e. double-transformation cost. From an architecture standpoint, @daniele’s proposal here, inscribed in the “put-your-own-DRT” paradigm, is much cleaner.

Cool stuff! Quick question though as I haven’t loaded your Nuke scripts: What is the Y-axis red line here? Might be worth plotting 0 on the X-axis also.

What I said above was an incomplete thought. Let me try to elaborate.

I agree with you one hundred percent that it is highly undesirable to build LMTs through the inverse of the display transform. The fact that this is required with the current ACES system is a huge problem that absolutely needs to be resolved. Daniele’s proposal is fanstastic and absolutely the best path forward in my opinion.

All I mean to say above is that it is possible to form an LMT that exactly matches the current ACES Output Transforms, if it were desired.

By this I mean to say that if we were to have a chromaticity-linear display transform with minimal look and a robust inverse, it would be better to build LMTs “on top of” than the current ACES Output Transform. Hopefully this makes sense.

I am 1,000% in favor of an output transform agnostic system, but as it has been said before, I believe we still need a good looking default for the more novice users.

The red line is display-linear 1.0. Hopefully it made sense what I typed above. Let me summarize:

  • The X-Axis of the plot is log-ranging, with a minimum on the far left edge of 5 stops below 0.18, and a maximum on the far right edge of 12 stops above 0.18. The X-Axis origin is not pictured.
  • In these plots I have removed the output domain scale which place white at the correct position for the PQ Inverse EOTF, so that we can more easily compare what is happening to the curve at different values of Lw.
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I spent a little time today porting some Nuke tools to DCTL and Blinkscript.

Here are the two tonemapping functions from my last post:
EOTF.dctl (4.0 KB)
Tonemap_PiecewiseHyperbolic.dctl (4.2 KB)
Tonemap_ToeLast.dctl (3.7 KB)

I’ve also added blinkscript versions in my git repo here:

Hope it’s useful as a better reference implementation, and for to help people less familiar with Nuke to experiment and play around.

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Further Simplification of the Parameter Model

I spent some time doing further work on the parameter model. My goal is to figure out a simple elegant behavior for the curve control parameters in terms of display luminance Lw, in order to create a model that smoothly transitions from SDR to HDR.

Previously I had a control w for boosting exposure with HDR peak luminance like @daniele mentioned in one of the previous meetings. I wondered if this idea could be extended to a simple model for changing grey nit level Lg based on peak white luminance Lw. Maybe something that would work across all values of Lw from 100 nits to 4000 nits.

I gathered some sample values, looked at the behavior, and used the desmos regression solver to come up with a simple log function which models it pretty well. This could of course be altered depending on rendering or aesthetic preferences.
L_{g}=14.4+1.436\ \ln\left(\frac{L_{w}}{1000}\right)

The result sets the middle grey value based on Lw pretty effectively.

Doing the same thing for the toe flare/glare compensation control: t_{0}=\frac{1}{L_{w}} seems to be a very good fit to the observed behavior of how the amount of toe compensation should be reduced as peak luminance increases.

All of this should be further refined and validated with testing of course, but the behavior seems to work quite well with the limited consumer-level display devices which I have at my disposal.

Experiment Time

Most LCD computer monitors these days can output 250 nits or more. Yet if we are calibrating to Rec.709, we set the luminance to 100 nits.

For a long time I’ve wondered if it were possible and what it would look like to render an image for proper display on a monitor with a higher nit level. Using the model described above I decided to finally do just such an experiment. I’ll share the results here because I think they are pretty interesting and do a good job of showing the visual difference between hdr and sdr in a relative way.

Experiment Summary

I have two computer monitors:

  • HP Dreamcolor Z27x G2
  • DELL U2713HM

I set my Dell to be 100 nits and my HP to be 250 nits. Using OpenDRT_v0.0.81b3, I rendered one image using Lw = 100 nits, and one using Lw = 250 nits and put them on their respective monitors.

I was surprised that their appearance actually looked pretty similar, after my eyes adjusted. The 250 nit version had more range and clarity in the highlights and shadows, and the 100 nit version looked a bit more dull and compressed. Once my eyes adapted to each image though, their appearance was very similar. We can do a variation of this comparison using only one SDR monitor with the luminance cranked up as far as it will go. By rendering one image with a peak white of some value, say 250 nit or 600 nit, and the other image with a 100 nit white luminance, but a peak luminance matching the 250 nit or 600 nit output (this can be achieved by overriding the Lp setting in the OpenDRT node).

I’ll include a couple of comparison images below. To view them, crank up your monitor brightness as high as it will go and view the images full screen with no UI visible, and do the comparison in a dark room with the lights off. Also if you have something like a piece of black foam-core to cover the image you are not viewing, it will help you get a more accurate perception.

On the top is an image scaled to simulate a 100 nit output on a 250 nit monitor: Lw = 100, Lp = 250.
On the bottom is the same image rendered at the full 250 nits: Lw = 250, Lp = 250.







I’ve uploaded more of these test images here:
https://mega.nz/folder/zmQFGYIQ#QBi5RkfFfaCdV4rfc06_hA

The same experiment could be performed to compare a 600 nit rendering to a 100 nit rendering, though maybe less precise without access to a proper HDR display.


And all the same images but vs.600 nit available here:
https://mega.nz/folder/XzZHiaTI#CT3VbT94pg-BHxEkafJlGg

And here is the nuke script I used to generate all these test images.
opendrt_100nit_vs_hdr.nk (193.2 KB)

The source images are from the ODT VWG, the Gamut Mapping VWG and the VMLab Stuttgart HDR Test Images, and a few beautiful CG Renders by @ChrisBrejon (Hopefully he doesn’t mind me using them here).

With the increase in “VESA Display HDR 400” monitors, I think this experiment is particularly relevant today.

I’m somewhat confident I’ve set all of this up correctly, but if any of you smart people see any errors feel free to point them out!

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I went ahead and ran out the same image set through the ACES Output Transform modified to output 600 nit HDR in a BT.1886 container, compared with SDR, same as above.
https://mega.nz/folder/e2ongI6a#wkjlR1_y4JMcGbcsoqrObw

Just to make it clear what the images are:

  • Bottom image is display linear result of 600 nit HDR display render transform, without any peak display luminance normalization (e.g., 600 nit luminance is mapped to 1.0 in display linear, instead of 600 / 10,000 like it would need to be if dumping into a ST-2084 container)
  • Top image is display linear result of a 100 nit SDR display render transform, scaled so that display linear 1.0 matches 100 nits on a 600 nit display (e.g., display linear 1.0 equals 100 / 600)

This shows the “rough relative appearance difference” between the “look” of the hdr rendering, and the sdr rendering, in a way that can be seen on a normal computer monitor.

I think these images do a good job of showing the HDR / SDR appearance match issues with the per-channel approach.

And the nuke script that generated the images if anyone wants to play:
aces_100nit_vs_hdr.nk (237 KB)

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That’s very interesting Jed.

Having little experience with HDR (unfortunately), I think these examples help a lot ! I agree that these images show clearly that the hue shifts/skews will be dependent of the RGB (per-channel) lookup “compression”.

It reminded me of this paper (originally shared by Kevin Wheatley). Quoting the conclusion :

The maxRGB variation is the only implementation, out of the five presented in this article and summarized in Table 5, that accomplishes both objectives [restricting luminance and minimizing hue variance].

And this makes me wonder how this could be solved in the current ACES Output Transform (for the possible prototype’s evaluation). If I recall correctly, it has been stated a couple of times that this would be very tricky to correct for.

Because if it is device/display dependent, doesn’t it beat the whole idea of color management ?

Best,
Chris

Hello,

I don’t think your comparison is really valid, the transformation chain you applied on the top image never occurs in practice, you are effectively doing this:

Inverse EOTF(OutputTransform_{Abridged}(RGB) \cdot \cfrac{100}{600})

In a proper image formation chain, the signal is never scaled the way you expressed your transformation chain. Trying to model the display peak luminance effect on appearance like that is not correct, if anything scaling should occur at the very end. It is a by-product of the display calibration characteristics, not something happening somewhere middle of the display rendering transform.

Cheers,

Thomas

Unless I’m missing something, I’m not entirely sure this is true. For example in the ACES Output Transform this type of scaling is exactly what happens to the display linear light code values before it is put into the ST-2084 PQ Inverse EOTF container. But maybe I don’t understand what you mean.

Just to confirm I understand what you are saying, you are suggesting to scale display light after the inverse eotf has been applied?

In fact maybe I don’t understand what you are saying at all. Maybe you can you do me a favor and outline exactly how you would approach previewing the “rough relative appearance difference” between 600 nit hdr and sdr on an sdr display?

This transformation never occurs for SDR and for HDR it is scaled by Y_{max}, to be exact, in ACES, it is linCV * (Ymax - Ymin) + Ymin. However, here you are not scaling by Y_{max} but a factor of it, which people will never see in practice on a SDR display. With that in mind, and given your images have been encoded for SDR exhibition, I don’t think that your modeling is really appropriate to convey relative appearance.

Well, I don’t think you can in any meaningful way, the inverse is totally possible though!

Cheers,

Thomas

I don’t see how this is relevant or makes my comparison invalid?

Not to be completely pedantic and distract from the point … but your math there is not the whole picture.

All of the HDR Output Transforms in ACES 1.2 have stretch black = true, which sets Y_{min} to 0.

linCV is not scaled by Y_{max}, it is scaled by the ratio of Y_{max} and peak display luminance, which for PQ is 10,000 nit. So the equation you pasted above is only the first part of the normalization. The second is in the PQ Inverse EOTF. Both parts combined simplify to linCV * \frac{Y_{max}}{10,000}, which if I’m not mistaken is exactly what I did above.

This is true, but with directions to boost display brightness as much as possible with whatever SDR device people have access to. My intent is to show the “rough relative appearance difference” between the “look” of the hdr rendering, and the sdr rendering with different display transforms.

So a question then, since I’m assuming you do have access to an HDR display device: Do you see an appearance different between HDR and SDR that is different than my tests above when you do the same test on an HDR display device? I would be curious to hear the answer to this question.

The relevance is that you modify the SDR imagery, preventing its highlights to reach display peak luminance by dividing them by 6 while the normalised HDR imagery highlights are allowed to reach peak luminance. Then you are asking for a meaningful comparison that requires people to extrapolate really hard from that basis where in reality no one will ever see the imagery like that. Hope it makes sense!

Ah! Considering that Y_{min} is 0.0001 it is pedantic, but then I have said exact, so point taken!

PQ is an absolute EOTF and always normalizes the luminance input by 10000, it is a constant that never changes.

I have certainly never seen anything that makes it look like the imagery is clipped and quantized like on your example, which prompted my original reply and trying to understand how you came about it. Trying to simulate HDR appearance on an SDR display does not really work, we would not have created HDR technology in the first place if it did.

Cheers,

Thomas

Edit: In case it’s not clear the above two videos are HDR Rec.2020 ST-2084 PQ, and intended to be viewed on an HDR device. If you view them on an SDR device you will not be seeing them as intended, though surprisingly youtube’s HDR->SDR conversion is pretty good and you may get the idea even on an SDR display.

Isn’t that kind of what Apple EDR does, that recent Resolve and Nuke builds for macOS make use of? It’s certainly not true HDR, but on my 16" MacBook Pro I can flip between a reasonable looking SDR image, and then an EDR image that shows more highlight range and detail.


Obviously an iPhone video of the laptop screen does not show it brilliantly!

Hi,

What is your Macbook peak Luminance though? The 16" 2019 model is above 400nits, it is x4 times that of a typical SDR display, and thus has much more headroom. My iPhone 11 Pro is 800nits… EDR only came recently because Apple displays are brighter than before and are surfing at the entry door of proper HDR.

Extending Jed’s process to simulate a 1000 display would result in images that are totally defective when presented on an SDR display. This is especially true if compared by juxtaposition because you are comparing them in relation to each other and leave no chance for the HVS to decide what is actually white. You effectively impose the simulated HDR white to be the reference and everything becomes judged with respect to that then.

Looking at Jed’s latest videos, the only thing I see on my SDR display is a comparison between soft-clipped images and their non-soft clipped variant, nothing that reproduces the appearance of HDR in any meaningful way.

Meta Edit: Please, partially, disregard my previous paragraph in the light of Jed’s Edit: the videos were originally posted without context and I assumed, incorrectly, that they were direct follow-up of what is currently being discussed. I, however, still maintain that if there is still the idea to convey HDR look on SDR, it does not work.

Cheers,

Thomas

The place where you scale does not really matter as long as it is linear light. We do pre EOTF scaling all the time.

Jed was assuming in his first example that your monitors peak white is 250 nits. And then he produced a 100 nit peak image within the 250 nits peak monitor Vs a image going all the way up to 250 nits.

I see no problem with it.

In SDR, with factors that reduce the signal peak by 6 or over? No way…

In his second example which is the one I reacted to, i.e. 600 nits display, he was talking about a normal computer display which normatively, here, is 100 nits, not 200, not 400 or 600. Reproducing the appearance of HDR at 600 nits on a 100 nits display simply does work but if people think it does, then all good :slight_smile:

Comparing SDR and HDR as the same time is questionable anyway because of adaption.

I hope everybody understood (at least I did) to take it with a grain of salt.
I still think it shows the point (and I can say that the skews in the RGB tonemapping looks very similar to Jed’s simulation).

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Nobody said it is an accurate precise experiment.

Exactly, but not only, when you juxtapose such different images it is an even deeper rabbit hole than just adaptation. You start losing what is an illumination source vs reflectance in the image which has plenty of cognitive consequences.

Indeed, and I’m actually questioning the usefulness of the experiment at the scaling factor involved for the 600 nits variant.

Yes but you have same effects when you show a real 600 nits peak image next to a 100 nit one.

If you have a monitor with peak at 300 nits (pretending it is a 600 nits monitor) than SDR is at 50 nits.
So everything is just a stop below the real thing. Which is easily adaptable.

But of course there are other aspects like quantisation and contrast which do not match.

Ideally you do you experiments on a proper HDR monitor if you have one.