ABSTRACT
Color reproduction refers to the relationship between colors in an original scene and the corresponding colors depicted in an image of that scene. Tone reproduction is the relationship between the lightness (or visual density) of neutral tones in scenes and images thereof; it does not refer to the chromatic character of black and white images, as in the term “sepia toning”. Although tone reproduction is a subset of color reproduction, it is so important perceptually that it is convenient to treat it as a distinct entity. Although the impact of color and tone reproduction on overall image quality is undisputed, some readers may doubt whether its perceptual attributes, which are preferential in nature, can be quantified in the same rigorous fashion as artifactual attributes. Several aspects of this issue have already been addressed in Chs. 1, 4, 9, and 10. For review, the observations made previously are briefly summarized below.
