Why Reducing Contrast Reduces Clarity
The ability of a person with normal visual acuity to see fine details is determined by his or her contrast sensitivity. Contrast sensitivity is the reciprocal of the smallest contrast for which a person can see a sine-wave grating. A person's contrast sensitivity function is contrast sensitivity as a function of spatial frequency. Normally, peak contrast sensitivity is at about 4 cycles per degree of visual angle. At higher spatial frequencies, comprising finer and finer lines, contrast sensitivity decreases, until at about 40 cycles per degree even the brightest of bright lines and the darkest of dark lines cannot be seen.
The high spatial frequencies in an image give it its fine details. Reducing the contrast of an image reduces the visibility of these high spatial frequencies because contrast sensitivity for them is already poor. This is how a reduction of contrast can reduce the clarity of an image—by removing its fine details.
It is important to emphasize that reducing the contrast is not the same as blurring an image. Blurring is accomplished by reducing the contrast only of the high spatial frequencies. Aerial perspective reduces the contrast of all spatial frequencies.
Read more about this topic: Aerial Perspective
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