High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) is a technique used in photographic imaging and films, and in ray-traced computer-generated imaging, to reproduce a greater range of luminosity than what is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. Standard techniques allow differentiation only within a certain range of brightness. Outside this range, no features are visible because in the brighter areas everything appears pure white, and pure black in the darker areas. The ratio between the maximum and the minimum of the tonal value in an image is known as the dynamic range. HDRI is useful for recording many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade, or very faint nebulae. High-dynamic-range (HDR) images are often created by capturing and then combining several different, narrower range, exposures of the same subject matter.
