There’s a common view that blowing out or burning highlights is a bad practice. There are times when a lack of detail in areas of a photo due to burnt highlights is problematic if the details in those areas are integral to the feel and story the photo communicates. There are also times when it doesn’t matter at all. For example, is it really vital to be able to see the filament in a light bulb? And forget about any detail in a bright light source like the sun – that’s not going to happen without special expensive filters.

Consider the above photo. To reveal some of the detail on the leftmost chair, I bumped up the exposure a touch and allowed more light to hit the sensor. Doing this also burnt the highlights on the edge of some of the bricks. The tradeoff was worth it because it was more important to reveal detail on the chair than to preserve the texture on those small sections of the bricks. The other benefit is that the slightly overexposed highlights also communicate the glow of the sun at the time.