Blooming

Blooming refers to the phenomenon that occurs when the pixels on a digital camera overflow with sensory information. When the pixels on a digital camera can’t take in any more photons (the particles of light that produce an image), the excess sensory information causes the resulting picture to appear overexposed, blurry and less detailed.

Often, blooming occurs in scenes that are intensely backlit. In such cases, the bright light in the back produces more photons than a camera’s photodiode (the photon receptor) can take in.

To prevent blooming, some cameras are equipped with “anti-blooming gates” that prevent the overflow of photon data from ruining the picture. However, the anti-blooming gate feature can only minimize blooming if the scene isn’t set in a brightly lit area.

While some photographers may see blooming as a negative photographic effect, it can be invoke to an artistic effect. Although blooming does blur the details of a picture, it does give the image a dreamy, ethereal feeling. For this reason, blooming is a technique that may be used in gothic photography to lend the photographs a mysterious quality.