US Patent 7102682 Exposure control in a digital camera

A method for exposure control which yields exposure settings just high enough to clip light sources and reflections from light sources in an image scene while allocating the majority of image sensor dynamic range to remaining objects in the image scene. Exposure control according to the present techniques includes determining a number of clipped pixels from an image scene for one or more of a set of possible exposures and determining a selected exposure from the possible exposures such that the possible exposures higher than the selected exposure increase the number and the possible exposures less than the selected exposure do not substantially decrease the number.