Blooming
From The Glossary of Digital Photography
A type of image distortion caused when charges from one pixel leak to an adjacent pixel in a CCD. Blooming occurs when the amount of charge that one pixel receives is more than it can store. Anti-blooming gates are used on some CCDs to counteract this distortion. The anti-blooming gate drains the excess charges away from each pixel to keep it from overflowing. This process has helped, but there are still situations in which a bright edge is next to a dark edge and the blooming, which looks like a white halo or streak in the dark areas, occurs. This effect may cause the purple halos or lines of chromatic aberration to become more visible as well. See also chromatic aberration
