Methods and apparatuses for increasing the apparent brightness of a display

An apparatus comprising:

• a display monitor that includes a black level and a maximum brightness level;
• and
• a display controller to partition a signal coming to the display monitor into three brightness regions:
• a shadow region, a highlight region, and a middle region, to shift up signal values for the middle region with a gamma correction based on multiplying only the signal values for the middle region with a factor to increase the brightness while preserving a relative contrast, wherein preserving relative contrast comprises keeping substantially constant a shape of a gamma correction curve of the display monitor for the middle region, to interpolate in a non-linear manner the signal values in the highlight region to the maximum brightness level, wherein the middle region comprises a range of at least 90% of the signal values, wherein the range of the middle region is computed to achieve a target luminance.

An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory machine accessible storage medium including data that when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

• partitioning a signal coming to the monitor into three brightness regions:
• a shadow region, a highlight region, and a middle region;
• shifting up signal values for the middle region with a gamma correction based on multiplying only the signal values for the middle region with a factor to increase the brightness while preserving a relative contrast, wherein preserving relative contrast comprises keeping substantially constant a shape of a gamma correction curve of the monitor for the middle region;
• and
• interpolating in a non-linear manner the signal values in the highlight region to the maximum brightness level, wherein the middle region comprises a range of at least 90% of the signal values, wherein the range of the middle region is computed to achieve a target luminance.