Just to point out, the image in the above mentioned thread is not "blown out," just over exposed. There is a difference! Hopefully, everyone is aware of that and understands the difference.
"Hopefully, everyone is aware of that and understands the difference."
----------------- At the risk of seeming ignorant for a few minutes I'll ask where the line in the sand is between the two.
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Blown Out: When instead of having features the actors heads are incandescent blobs.
When something is overexposed, all pixels are brighter than they should be but retain a difference in brightness among them; think of it in numerical terms:
Overexposure: normal brightness pixels of value 4, 5, 7, 9 are rendered as 6,7,9,11. These brighter pixels can be brought back to "normal" by subtracting 2 from each value.
Blown out: the pixels are rendered as 11,12, 12, 12 (since the maximum brightness in this system is 12). There is no brightness difference among the 3 brighter pixels, that information has been lost and no amount of manipulation will bring the difference in brightness of the subject back.