Contrast pyramids have shown excellent reconstructions for several images with only a few number of high contrasts. The contrast histogram of the image shows the distribution of contrasts and allows to select a bound that limits the mean reconstruction error. A total order of the vertices enables a both the ordering of the edges with the same contrast and, together with max-link strategy, generates efficiently the contraction kernels of the pyramid. A spiral total order pushes the surviving vertices geometrically towards the center of the image.