Everything about Relative luminance

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

1. Read the overview: Relative luminanceA 5-minute orientation
2. Skim a recent paper: Development of a Low-Cost Luminance Imaging Device with Minimal Equipment Calibration Procedures for Absolute and Relative LuminanceInfluential work since 2022
3. Pick up a classic book: The origin of ideasThe most-reprinted book on the subject
4. Read the landmark paper: Sex, Beauty, and the Relative Luminance of Facial FeaturesCited 142 times
5. Go sideways: GrayscaleA closely related topic
6. Go sideways: Luma (video)A closely related topic

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

• Sex, Beauty, and the Relative Luminance of Facial Features

  Richard Russell · 2003 · Perception · 142 citations

• Relative area and relative luminance combine to anchor surface lightness values

  Xiaojun Li, Alan L. Gilchrist · 1999 · Perception & Psychophysics · 80 citations

• Peaked Encoding of Relative Luminance in Macaque Areas V1 and V2

  Xinmiao Peng, David C. Van Essen · 2005 · Journal of Neurophysiology · 59 citations

• Orientation discrimination for objects defined by relative motion and objects defined by luminance contrast

  D. Regan · 1989 · Vision Research · 59 citations

• The critical role of relative luminance relations in White's effect and grating induction

  Branka Spehar, Alan Gilchrist, Lawrence Arend · 1995 · Vision Research · 42 citations

• Relative contributions of melanopsin to brightness discrimination when hue and luminance also vary

  Tanner DeLawyer, Sei-ichi Tsujimura, Keizo Shinomori · 2020 · Journal of the Optical Society of America A · 37 citations

• Relative contributions of optical and neural limitations to human contrast sensitivity at different luminance levels

  M.A. Losada, R- Navarro, J. Santamaría · 1993 · Vision Research · 29 citations

• Maps of sky relative radiance and luminance distributions acquired with a monochromatic CCD camera

  Elton G. Rossini, Arno Krenzinger · 2007 · Solar Energy · 25 citations

🆕 Influential since 2022

• Development of a Low-Cost Luminance Imaging Device with Minimal Equipment Calibration Procedures for Absolute and Relative Luminance

  Daniel Bishop, J. Geoffrey Chase · 2023 · Buildings · 6 citations

• Additivity of grouping by proximity and luminance similarity is dependent on relative grouping strength: An analysis of individual differences in grouping sensitivity

  Elisabeth Van der Hulst, Elle van Heusden, Johan Wagemans · 2023 · Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics · 5 citations

• Shadow Detection Based on Luminance-LiDAR Intensity Uncorrelation

  Shogo SATO, Yasuhiro YAO, Taiga YOSHIDA · 2023 · IEICE Transactions on Information and Systems · 3 citations

• Relative luminance and the watercolor illusion impact figure-ground in a probed region paradigm

  Tanner L. Lumpkin, Hannah V. Hyman, Ralph G. Hale · 2025 · Journal of Vision · 0 citations

• Using Relative Luminance to Inform the Design and Evaluation of User Interfaces for Dark-Adapted Operators

  John Paul Plummer, John J. Winters, Carlton Craddock · 2025 · Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting · 0 citations

📚 Books worth reading

• The origin of ideasAntonio Rosmini · 1883
• 📕Reviews in modern astronomyReinhard Schielicke, Astronomische Gesellschaft (Germany). Meeting · 1996
• 📕Studies in the History of General RelativityJean Eisenstaedt · 1992
• Black HoleMarcia Bartusiak · 2015
• Human Interface and the Management of Information. Information and Interaction DesignSakae Yamamoto · 2013
• 📕Space and time in perception and actionRomi Nijhawan · 2010
• Space and time in perception and action · 2010
• A TOUR OF THE WORLDMalik Mansab Khan, Muhammad Rafique Abdul Aziz · 2025

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

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