A technique for adjusting the brightness values of images to be displayed on a stereoscopic head mounted display is provided herein. This technique improves the perceived dynamic range of the head mounted display by dynamically adjusting the pixel intensities (also known generally as “exposure”) of the images presented on the head mounted display based on a detected gaze direction. The head mounted display includes an eye tracker that is able to sense the gaze directions of the eyes. The eye tracker, head mounted display, or a processor of a computer system receives this information, determines an intersection point of the eye gaze and a screen within the head mounted display and identifies a gaze area around this intersection point. Using this gaze area, the processing system adjusts the pixel intensities of an image displayed on the screen based on the intensities of the pixels within the gaze area.