Games Look Bad: HDR and Tone Mapping
&gt; We would need 20 bits of just luminance to represent [the range 1,000,000:1<p>I don&#x27;t understand this statement. Why do you need a certain number of bits to represent a large range? You can encode a range using any number of bits you want, but if you use fewer bits the resolution within may be lower.<p>Representing a large luminance range isn&#x27;t a problem of resolution though is it? It&#x27;s a problem of presenting that contrast ratio on a screen that is not capable of a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1. If I represented the same luminance range with a thousand bits it doesn&#x27;t do anything to solve the core problem, does it? So why does the number of bits matter?<p>Not a graphics programmer, so genuinely asking, not saying the article is wrong!