Tonescale compression for electroluminescent display

1. A method for controlling an electroluminescent display to produce an image for display that has reduced luminance to reduce burn-in on the display while maintaining visible contrast, the method comprising:

providing the electroluminescent (EL) display comprising a plurality of EL emitters, the luminance of the light produced by each EL emitter being responsive to a respective drive signal;

receiving a plurality of input image signals for each EL emitter, the input image signals having a peak frame luminance, each input image signal corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of frames;

transforming the input image signals to a plurality of drive signals comprising a reduced peak frame luminance value while maintaining contrast in the displayed image to reduce burn-in by adjusting the drive signals to have reduced luminance provided by each pixel, the transforming comprising:

determining the peak frame luminance based on the time when a static image is displayed;

holding the peak frame luminance constant for i frames after the static image is displayed;

reducing the peak frame luminance by a first exponential function until a time Fs;

once Fs is achieved, peak frame luminance is reduced by a second exponential function; and

wherein the drive signals are further adjusted so that a luminance decrease in a shadow range is less than a luminance decrease in a non-shadow range in the displayed image for the drive signals with reduced peak frame luminance.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the transforming to a reduced peak frame luminance comprises applying a contrast function to the input image signal to produce the further adjusted drive signals.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the contrast function is linear for luminance values greater than 20% of the peak frame luminance value, and nonlinear for values less than 5% of the peak frame luminance value.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the contrast function varies as a function of the peak frame luminance value.

5. The method according to claim 2 , wherein:

the contrast function comprises a first and a second sub-function;

the first sub-function is used to transform input image signals in the shadow range; and

the second sub-function is used to transform input image signals in the non-shadow range.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein:

the first sub-function is nonlinear; and

the second sub-function is linear.

7. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the contrast function and its first derivative are both continuous.

8. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the first sub-function comprises a quadratic polynomial.

9. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the transforming further comprises:

dividing the input image signal into a high and a low spatial frequency image;

applying the contrast function to the low spatial frequency image; and

applying a linear transform to the high spatial frequency image.

10. The method according to claim 9 , wherein the low frequency image comprises a spatial frequency of ≦4 cycles per degree of visual angle.

11. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising dithering the drive signals values in the shadow.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein:

the EL display comprises an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display; and

each EL emitter comprises an OLED emitter.