Re: Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: chiron wrote:
Yet, obviously, many paintings are spectacularly beautiful without doing anything like HDR and with a more limited dynamic and contrast range. That might teach us something about how much dynamic range we actually need to make a beautiful photograph.
When you say dynamic range, are you talking about the dynamic range of the painting itself? or the scene that the painter captured?
A plein air painter will paint an outdoor scene and have to deal with the exact same dynamic range challenges that a photographer would have to handle. Except the painter relies on their eyes to "capture" the information in the scene and then translate it to the more limited dynamic range of the canvas. A photographer would have to rely on the sensor to do the same, and then during editing map it to the more limited dynamic range of the monitor, or paper.
For paper, people normally talk about contrast range. A matt paper might have a contrast ratio (darkest black to brightest white) of 100:1 and a glossy paper might have a ratio of 200:1. I guess that's roughly to 7 to 8 stops.
I suspect paintings have greater contrast ratio than prints because they can use a wider variety of pigments. Apparently there are specialty paints, like Vanta Black, that can absorb 99.965% of light. I think that works out to a 3000:1 contrast ratio (11.5 stops). But even using something like Vanta Black, they are still mapping the scene they see with their eyes (maybe 15stops?) into the much reduced range of the canvas and paint. So I guess you could say they are still doing "HDR" except manually.
I am definitely talking about the dynamic or tonal range of the painting itself. Here's what Claude 4.8 came up with, which is somewhat different from your figures and closer to my experience of viewing images (and I think closer to Dan's points). But I appreciate what you are saying and I know that I may be not understanding your points clearly.
From Claude 4.8:
I asked: "Do oil paintings have anything equivalent to dynamic range in photography?
Claude answered:
"Yes, though the equivalent is more constrained and works differently.
"The closest concept is tonal range or the value scale an oil painting can render. A photograph captured digitally might encode 10–14 stops of dynamic range, but any reflective print—oil paintings included—is bounded by the physics of pigment and surface. The brightest possible value is the reflectance of the lightest paint (titanium white, lead white) and the darkest is whatever the darkest pigment absorbs short of perfect blackness. In practice this gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces—comparable to a matte photographic print, and dramatically less than what a backlit screen or the original scene offers. So oil paint has a "dynamic range," but it's a narrow one, and the painter's entire craft of value management is essentially the problem of compressing a high-range world into that limited band."
--End of Claude--
What is interesting about painting's more limited dynamic-tonal and contrast range is how painters use it to create beautiful light and images. For example, Vermeer's rendering of light is exceptionally beautiful, yet the dynamic range in his images is very limited.
Re: Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: chiron wrote:
Yet, obviously, many paintings are spectacularly beautiful without doing anything like HDR and with a more limited dynamic and contrast range. That might teach us something about how much dynamic range we actually need to make a beautiful photograph.
When you say dynamic range, are you talking about the dynamic range of the painting itself? or the scene that the painter captured?
A plein air painter will paint an outdoor scene and have to deal with the exact same dynamic range challenges that a photographer would have to handle. Except the painter relies on their eyes to "capture" the information in the scene and then translate it to the more limited dynamic range of the canvas. A photographer would have to rely on the sensor to do the same, and then during editing map it to the more limited dynamic range of the monitor, or paper.
For paper, people normally talk about contrast range. A matt paper might have a contrast ratio (darkest black to brightest white) of 100:1 and a glossy paper might have a ratio of 200:1. I guess that's roughly to 7 to 8 stops.
I suspect paintings have greater contrast ratio than prints because they can use a wider variety of pigments. Apparently there are specialty paints, like Vanta Black, that can absorb 99.965% of light. I think that works out to a 3000:1 contrast ratio (11.5 stops). But even using something like Vanta Black, they are still mapping the scene they see with their eyes (maybe 15stops?) into the much reduced range of the canvas and paint. So I guess you could say they are still doing "HDR" except manually.
I am definitely talking about the dynamic or tonal range of the painting itself. Here's what Claude 4.8 came up with, which is somewhat different from your figures and closer to my experience of viewing images (and I think closer to Dan's points). But I appreciate what you are saying and I know that I may be not understanding your points clearly.
From Claude 4.8:
I asked: "Do oil paintings have anything equivalent to dynamic range in photography?
Claude answered:
"Yes, though the equivalent is more constrained and works differently.
"The closest concept is tonal range or the value scale an oil painting can render. A photograph captured digitally might encode 10–14 stops of dynamic range, but any reflective print—oil paintings included—is bounded by the physics of pigment and surface. The brightest possible value is the reflectance of the lightest paint (titanium white, lead white) and the darkest is whatever the darkest pigment absorbs short of perfect blackness. In practice this gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces—comparable to a matte photographic print, and dramatically less than what a backlit screen or the original scene offers. So oil paint has a "dynamic range," but it's a narrow one, and the painter's entire craft of value management is essentially the problem of compressing a high-range world into that limited band."
--End of Claude--
What is interesting about painting's more limited dynamic-tonal and contrast range is how painters use it to create beautiful light and images. For example, Vermeer's rendering of light is exceptionally beautiful, yet the dynamic range in his images is very limited.
Re: Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: chiron wrote:
Yet, obviously, many paintings are spectacularly beautiful without doing anything like HDR and with a more limited dynamic and contrast range. That might teach us something about how much dynamic range we actually need to make a beautiful photograph.
When you say dynamic range, are you talking about the dynamic range of the painting itself? or the scene that the painter captured?
A plein air painter will paint an outdoor scene and have to deal with the exact same dynamic range challenges that a photographer would have to handle. Except the painter relies on their eyes to "capture" the information in the scene and then translate it to the more limited dynamic range of the canvas. A photographer would have to rely on the sensor to do the same, and then during editing map it to the more limited dynamic range of the monitor, or paper.
For paper, people normally talk about contrast range. A matt paper might have a contrast ratio (darkest black to brightest white) of 100:1 and a glossy paper might have a ratio of 200:1. I guess that's roughly to 7 to 8 stops.
I suspect paintings have greater contrast ratio than prints because they can use a wider variety of pigments. Apparently there are specialty paints, like Vanta Black, that can absorb 99.965% of light. I think that works out to a 3000:1 contrast ratio (11.5 stops). But even using something like Vanta Black, they are still mapping the scene they see with their eyes (maybe 15stops?) into the much reduced range of the canvas and paint. So I guess you could say they are still doing "HDR" except manually.
I am definitely talking about the dynamic or tonal range of the painting itself. Here's what Claude 4.8 came up with, which is somewhat different from your figures and closer to my experience of viewing images (and I think closer to Dan's points). But I appreciate what you are saying and I know that I may be not understanding your points clearly.
From Claude 4.8:
I asked: "Do oil paintings have anything equivalent to dynamic range in photography?
Claude answered:
Yes, though the equivalent is more constrained and works differently.
"The closest concept is tonal range or the value scale an oil painting can render. A photograph captured digitally might encode 10–14 stops of dynamic range, but any reflective print—oil paintings included—is bounded by the physics of pigment and surface. The brightest possible value is the reflectance of the lightest paint (titanium white, lead white) and the darkest is whatever the darkest pigment absorbs short of perfect blackness. In practice this gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces—comparable to a matte photographic print, and dramatically less than what a backlit screen or the original scene offers. So oil paint has a "dynamic range," but it's a narrow one, and the painter's entire craft of value management is essentially the problem of compressing a high-range world into that limited band."
What is interesting about painting's more limited dynamic-tonal and contrast range is how painters use it to create beautiful light and images. For example, Vermeer's rendering of light is exceptionally beautiful, yet the dynamic range in his images is very limited.
Re: Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: chiron wrote:
Yet, obviously, many paintings are spectacularly beautiful without doing anything like HDR and with a more limited dynamic and contrast range. That might teach us something about how much dynamic range we actually need to make a beautiful photograph.
When you say dynamic range, are you talking about the dynamic range of the painting itself? or the scene that the painter captured?
A plein air painter will paint an outdoor scene and have to deal with the exact same dynamic range challenges that a photographer would have to handle. Except the painter relies on their eyes to "capture" the information in the scene and then translate it to the more limited dynamic range of the canvas. A photographer would have to rely on the sensor to do the same, and then during editing map it to the more limited dynamic range of the monitor, or paper.
For paper, people normally talk about contrast range. A matt paper might have a contrast ratio (darkest black to brightest white) of 100:1 and a glossy paper might have a ratio of 200:1. I guess that's roughly to 7 to 8 stops.
I suspect paintings have greater contrast ratio than prints because they can use a wider variety of pigments. Apparently there are specialty paints, like Vanta Black, that can absorb 99.965% of light. I think that works out to a 3000:1 contrast ratio (11.5 stops). But even using something like Vanta Black, they are still mapping the scene they see with their eyes (maybe 15stops?) into the much reduced range of the canvas and paint. So I guess you could say they are still doing "HDR" except manually.
I am definitely talking about the dynamic or tonal range of the painting itself. Here's what Claude 4.8 came up with, which is somewhat different from your figures and closer to my experience of viewing images (and I think closer to Dan's points). But I appreciate what you are saying and I know that I may be not understanding your clearly.
From Claude 4.8:
I asked: "Do oil paintings have anything equivalent to dynamic range in photography?
Claude answered:
Yes, though the equivalent is more constrained and works differently.
"The closest concept is tonal range or the value scale an oil painting can render. A photograph captured digitally might encode 10–14 stops of dynamic range, but any reflective print—oil paintings included—is bounded by the physics of pigment and surface. The brightest possible value is the reflectance of the lightest paint (titanium white, lead white) and the darkest is whatever the darkest pigment absorbs short of perfect blackness. In practice this gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces—comparable to a matte photographic print, and dramatically less than what a backlit screen or the original scene offers. So oil paint has a "dynamic range," but it's a narrow one, and the painter's entire craft of value management is essentially the problem of compressing a high-range world into that limited band."
What is interesting about painting's more limited dynamic-tonal and contrast range is how painters use it to create beautiful light and images. For example, Vermeer's rendering of light is exceptionally beautiful, yet the dynamic range in his images is very limited.
Re: Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: chiron wrote:
Yet, obviously, many paintings are spectacularly beautiful without doing anything like HDR and with a more limited dynamic and contrast range. That might teach us something about how much dynamic range we actually need to make a beautiful photograph.
When you say dynamic range, are you talking about the dynamic range of the painting itself? or the scene that the painter captured?
A plein air painter will paint an outdoor scene and have to deal with the exact same dynamic range challenges that a photographer would have to handle. Except the painter relies on their eyes to "capture" the information in the scene and then translate it to the more limited dynamic range of the canvas. A photographer would have to rely on the sensor to do the same, and then during editing map it to the more limited dynamic range of the monitor, or paper.
For paper, people normally talk about contrast range. A matt paper might have a contrast ratio (darkest black to brightest white) of 100:1 and a glossy paper might have a ratio of 200:1. I guess that's roughly to 7 to 8 stops.
I suspect paintings have greater contrast ratio than prints because they can use a wider variety of pigments. Apparently there are specialty paints, like Vanta Black, that can absorb 99.965% of light. I think that works out to a 3000:1 contrast ratio (11.5 stops). But even using something like Vanta Black, they are still mapping the scene they see with their eyes (maybe 15stops?) into the much reduced range of the canvas and paint. So I guess you could say they are still doing "HDR" except manually.
I am definitely talking about the dynamic or tonal range of the painting itself. Here's what Claude 4.8 came up with, which is somewhat different from your figures and much closer to my experience of viewing images (and I think closer to Dan's points). But maybe I am misunderstanding you.
From Claude 4.8:
I asked: "Do oil paintings have anything equivalent to dynamic range in photography?
Claude answered:
Yes, though the equivalent is more constrained and works differently.
"The closest concept is tonal range or the value scale an oil painting can render. A photograph captured digitally might encode 10–14 stops of dynamic range, but any reflective print—oil paintings included—is bounded by the physics of pigment and surface. The brightest possible value is the reflectance of the lightest paint (titanium white, lead white) and the darkest is whatever the darkest pigment absorbs short of perfect blackness. In practice this gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces—comparable to a matte photographic print, and dramatically less than what a backlit screen or the original scene offers. So oil paint has a "dynamic range," but it's a narrow one, and the painter's entire craft of value management is essentially the problem of compressing a high-range world into that limited band."
What is interesting about painting's more limited dynamic-tonal and contrast range is how painters use it to create beautiful light and images. For example, Vermeer's rendering of light is exceptionally beautiful, yet the dynamic range in his images is very limited.
Re: Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: chiron wrote:
Yet, obviously, many paintings are spectacularly beautiful without doing anything like HDR and with a more limited dynamic and contrast range. That might teach us something about how much dynamic range we actually need to make a beautiful photograph.
When you say dynamic range, are you talking about the dynamic range of the painting itself? or the scene that the painter captured?
A plein air painter will paint an outdoor scene and have to deal with the exact same dynamic range challenges that a photographer would have to handle. Except the painter relies on their eyes to "capture" the information in the scene and then translate it to the more limited dynamic range of the canvas. A photographer would have to rely on the sensor to do the same, and then during editing map it to the more limited dynamic range of the monitor, or paper.
For paper, people normally talk about contrast range. A matt paper might have a contrast ratio (darkest black to brightest white) of 100:1 and a glossy paper might have a ratio of 200:1. I guess that's roughly to 7 to 8 stops.
I suspect paintings have greater contrast ratio than prints because they can use a wider variety of pigments. Apparently there are specialty paints, like Vanta Black, that can absorb 99.965% of light. I think that works out to a 3000:1 contrast ratio (11.5 stops). But even using something like Vanta Black, they are still mapping the scene they see with their eyes (maybe 15stops?) into the much reduced range of the canvas and paint. So I guess you could say they are still doing "HDR" except manually.
I am definitely talking about the dynamic or tonal range of the painting itself. Here's what Claude 4.8 came up with, which is different from your figures and much closer to my experience of viewing images (and I think closer to Dan's points).
From Claude 4.8:
I asked: "Do oil paintings have anything equivalent to dynamic range in photography?
Claude answered:
Yes, though the equivalent is more constrained and works differently.
"The closest concept is tonal range or the value scale an oil painting can render. A photograph captured digitally might encode 10–14 stops of dynamic range, but any reflective print—oil paintings included—is bounded by the physics of pigment and surface. The brightest possible value is the reflectance of the lightest paint (titanium white, lead white) and the darkest is whatever the darkest pigment absorbs short of perfect blackness. In practice this gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces—comparable to a matte photographic print, and dramatically less than what a backlit screen or the original scene offers. So oil paint has a "dynamic range," but it's a narrow one, and the painter's entire craft of value management is essentially the problem of compressing a high-range world into that limited band."
What is interesting about painting's more limited dynamic-tonal and contrast range is how painters use it to create beautiful light and images. For example, Vermeer's rendering of light is exceptionally beautiful, yet the dynamic range in his images is very limited.
Jun 10, 2026 at 11:00 AM
Previous versions of chiron's message #17053423 « Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point »
