Shooting directly into the Sun, whether it is sunrise or sunset, often results in some areas around the Sun getting clipped, and we get these rather harsh edges in our sky. Even when shooting bracketed or underexposing for the highlights, we may not achieve a pleasing result around the strongest light in a scene.
Although they often get overlooked in the Photoshop workflow, clipping masks can make for some very interesting effects in images. A perfect example is the work of Roderique Arisiaman, whose portraiture includes intricately overlaid designs to make for intricate, unique images.
There are two types of clipping you probably try to avoid introducing into your images during post-production: luminosity clipping (when the brightest areas of an image become white, or when the darkest areas become black), and channel clipping (when the data within an individual channel becomes compromised). Both forms – unless you've made a deliberate decision to clip your data – are something to avoid.
“Exposing to the right” is a well-known rule of thumb for maximizing image …