Actually neither is good. Overexposure (clipping) means that there's no useable data left so, toning down might nog reveal the data you are missing.
Underexposing however retains some data, but the drawback is that there will be a lot of noise visible when trying to recover. Cleaning this with NR algorithm usually means loss of details.
In any case shooting RAW will give you the best posibilities in trying to recover both under- or overexposed pictures.
I like to shoot under with digital and over with film negatives :bsmilie:
Somehow shooting under by 1/3 of a stop and pulling up in PP looks better than exposing it correctly in the first place.
i prefer to over-expose...take note, over-expose is different from blowing highlights. the reason is i can pull it back down in ACR and avoid having shadow noise, compared to shooting under and trying to push up exposure.
again, i over-expose, but not blow highlights. maybe you guys can try it. shoot a high contrast scene with shadow areas, and bracket it with -1 and +1 EV. see which result you prefer after conversion.
hey i dunno if you guys heard of this technique whereby, to shoot over expose i think by one stop then bringing it down later in ps. this is to allow the use of high iso to get in background detail and at the same time removing or at least seriously reducing noise. although not sure if u must shoot raw for this one...i think if u control can still shoot jpeg