[Pete Svarrior]

So yeah, we’ve been going back and forth between the Sun/Eclipses, headlights, street lights, and spectacles that don’t do what they claim to do.

Going back and forth is fine. Pretending they're one and the same is not. You appear to agree.

If your objection is that the method Tom presented will work on some images (including the specific one he used for this), but not others, you should say that. Saying that it won't work while discussing an example in which it blatantly just worked is disingenuous, and an obvious attempt at distraction.

[Tumeni]

Tumeni, ... you claim that a photograph of nothing but the Sun has "lights" (plural) in it, or that any of them are overexposed.

I haven't said anything about the Sun photo(s) in this thread. I've only discussed the photos of streetlights, taken at night, and Heliographs.

[Pete Svarrior]

I addressed a very specific scenario - the GIF featuring the Sun. I was informed that I was wrong in my claims. When I inquired why, I was presented with a bunch of arguments about cars and street lights. If you don't see how that's changing the topic, I can't help you.

I can, however, point out that this kind of petty trolling is extremely common for you two, and I can assure you that it will not continue. If you can't post on topic, don't post.

[Tumeni]

I addressed a very specific scenario - the GIF featuring the Sun. I was informed that I was wrong in my claims. When I inquired why, I was presented with a bunch of arguments about cars and street lights. If you don't see how that's changing the topic, I can't help you.

I can, however, point out that this kind of petty trolling is extremely common for you two, and I can assure you that it will not continue. If you can't post on topic, don't post.

I was posting about the streetlights before you joined in, and I continued to do so. I haven't addressed the sun picture anywhere, and took it that you, when you didn't specify which picture of Tom's you were referring to, were also addressing the streetlights. It's clear now that you were referring to the sun picture, not the streetlights. Now that you've said so.

Honestly, if you're going to look for "trolling" in even the slightest misunderstanding  ....

[JSS]

No, adjusting the exposure settings is equivalent to adjusting the brightness and contrast settings in an image editor. Your assertion would only have merit if the sun was impervious to exposure or contrast adjustments, which it is not impervious.

I finally got a sunny day, so as promised, here are two pictures I just took.  One that has the Sun overexposed, and the second which has the correct in-camera adjustments.

I'm posting this to demonstrate that adjusting the cameras exposure settings is NOT equivalent to adjusting the brightness and contrast settings in an image editor as Tom claims.

Feel free to load this image into Photoshop or Lightroom and adjust the brightness and contrast.  You will never be able to turn the left image into the right image no matter what settings or adjustments you use. The data simply doesn't exist in the left side image, it's overexposed and no amount of image balancing can bring it back.

Conversely, you can't turn the right side image into the left side one by adjusting the brightness. You will never be able to make these two images look the same. The only way to make them is to adjust the camera settings when taking the pictures as I did.