The present invention provides a method for comprising data by determining a central value that is greater than the minimum value and less than the maximum value of the range of data. In one embodiment, the central value is chosen to be a value that substantially reduces a decoding error in the event that the range of values is subsequently estimated. In one embodiment, the central value is the value that minimizes the expected mean square error during reconstruction when there is an error. In one embodiment, the maximum and minimum values represent intensity data for pixels of an image. In another embodiment, the compression process is Adaptive Dynamic Range Coding, and the central value is a value within the dynamic range, excluding the maximum and minimum values.