The present disclosure describes compression of high dynamic range (HDR) images into low dynamic range (LDR) images while saving useful data in the HDR image. HDR images can be formed by merging images with different exposure times into a single image with high bit-depth to capture low light and bright data. LDR images can be generated using a joint auto-exposure and tone mapping system to capture useful details of the HDR input in and LDR output. Therefore, embodiments of the present disclosure create high quality LDR images from HDR images using data from the auto-exposure system of a sensor.