[Skippy Sanchez]

I've noticed this, too.

The digital gurus say we should "expose to the right," with most histogram info nudged to the right of center rather than to the left. However, I've noticed that with even the slightest overexposure, highlights clip big time and the pixels just left of the highlights lack detail.

I use ACR to process raw files, but find the "shadow/highlight" photoshop adjustment -- usually done in a layer so i can just work on the areas that need it -- able to recover much of the highlight detail I can't salvage in ACR.