Theoretical contrast curves for S/N = 1 (solid black) compared to the contrast curve derived from the injection and retrieval at a favorable positional angle (red). An indicative contrast curve is given with only the camera readout noise as a noise source (dotted black) and only the photon noise (dashed-dotted black). The theoretical contrast curves are computed for a host star of K-band magnitude 5.6 similar to HD 206893 used in the injection–retrieval data set.