Clipping (photography)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Example image exhibiting blown-out highlights. Top: original image, bottom: blown-out areas marked red

Clipping is when a part of a photograph is brighter than what the imaging device can handle. The clipped areas are sometimes called "blownout highlights". With digital cameras, the clipped area will often turn to pure white and will not contain any detail. This often happens when taking a photograph of a scene with a lot of contrast. Often the sky will be brighter than the rest of the photograph, rendering the sky white.

Clipping can occur in the image sensor, where it is called saturation; or at the analog-to-digital converter (ADC); or in the processing and rendering to a standard color space. Depending on where clipping occurs, and on whether raw data is still available, the clipping may be repairable.

[edit] See also

• Exposure (photography)

This photography-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.