Clipping (photography)

It may occur due to internal image processing or color space conversion in the camera or scanner.

Clipping that is due to internal image processing in a digital camera may often be partially or fully recovered if the raw sensor data is available, such as when saving to a raw image format.

Bright areas due to overexposure are sometimes called blown-out highlights.

In some cases, a small amount of clipping may be tolerable, especially when the clipped area is in the background of the image rather than part of the main subject, or is only a very small area such as a specular highlight (where a light, or the sun, is reflected in a shiny object).

This form of clipping may be avoided by performing the color space conversion using a different rendering intent.