Cousin Ricky <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
>
> This is exactly what versions 3.5 and earlier did, and when I compare it
> to the newer post-clipped anti-aliasing, certain effects, such as
> highlights with blurred reflection, look pretty limp.  There is a
> trade-off between good hyper-white effects and good anti-aliasing, and
> on balance, I'd have to say I prefer the latter.  It is easier to post
> process hyper-white effects than to boost an image whose contrasts have
> been compromised by averaging out its brightest elements after they've
> *already* been clipped.
>

Thanks to you and William for the in-depth analysis. Looks like this subject is
an old one ;-) I'm still absorbing the details.

I guess I'm not yet fully understanding the visual flaws or contrast differences
produced by 'pre-clipping' extra-bright pixels vs. 'post-clipping.' From your
images, the differences seem to be very subtle(?)

I just downloaded sbenge's 'luminous bloom' post-processing tool (thanks for the
link) but haven't tried using it yet, or looking over the code. From his older
posted images, the bloom effect appears to affect the entire image, rather than
just the too-bright pixels. Maybe I'm mistaken? And does it work with a typical
pre-rendered low-dynamic-range image, or just with some kind of HDR-rendering
scheme? Sorry if these are naive questions; his older comments deal solely with
HDR, AFAIK. (I did a newsgroup search for 'luminous bloom', but could not find
much info regarding LDR renders.)

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