This paper presents a novel method for tone mapping high dynamic range images and videos for display in conventional low dynamic range devices. The new multi-curve method uses tone mapping curves that are adaptive to local luminance levels. The new method has the computational simplicity of curve based tone mapping methods and achieves results comparable to spatial operator methods. When applying the operator to render high dynamic range video, we introduce a bilateral style temporal filtering which successfully avoids undesirable shot noise and ghosting effects. It is also shown that our HDR tone mapping operator is a useful image enhancement method for standard format (8 bits/pixel) images.