Hi. Can you please fix this ? This just does not look right.
Needles are opacity cards. When you render them agains bright background they just dissolve and thus the trees lack any volume. It does not matter if the background is HDRI or Corona Sky, does not matter how high you set up Hihlight compression, if you set up Highlight clamping or not.
^This is the message the whole compositing discussion originated from.
This behavior is expected in any renderer, and it also happens in real life.
If a thin or transparent object is against a bright background, its borders will contract.
Yes, you CAN negate that effect by using highlight clamping (see the attached examples, max scene, comparison):
https://corona-renderer.com/comparer/nrPkPHIf you cannot reproduce this in some other renderer or in photography, please post some examples and explanation how you did it.