Tone Mapping

Tone mapping is the process of squeezing a large dynamic range into a smaller one, most often when converting HDR down to SDR or fitting wide-latitude log footage into a display range. The challenge is rolling off bright highlights and lifting shadows so detail survives instead of clipping, while keeping mid-tones and skin looking natural. A colorist uses tone-mapping curves or transforms that gently compress the extremes rather than hard-clipping them, then trims the result by eye. Done well, an HDR-to-SDR pass keeps a sunset glowing and faces correct on an ordinary screen; done poorly, highlights blow out or the image goes flat and gray. Because so many deliverables target both HDR and SDR, reliable tone mapping is a core finishing skill rather than an afterthought.