An electronic imaging system operates as closely as possible to the cone spectral response space to obtain a human eye-like long, medium, short (LMS) wavelength response. An input image, for example, red-green-blue (RGB), is transformed to an LMS color space similar to the human long-, middle-, and short-wavelength cone receptor responses. Adaptation levels for each LMS component are calculated. The adaptation levels are then used to adjust the sensitivity of each LMS sensor response to obtain an LMS component image. The LMS component image then is transformed back to an RGB component image for further processing or display.