Clipping may be applied during various operations at an encoder or decoder. The lower and upper bounds for clipping can be differentially encoded with respect to predictors. Fixed predictors can be used, for example, 0 and 2bitdepth for the lower and upper bounds, respectively. Adaptive predictors can also be used. Adaptive predictors can be derived from clipping bounds in previously encoded or decoded pictures, or explicitly signaled in a bitstream. Whether to encode the clipping bounds can be determined based on the number of pixels that have values close to the clipping bounds. Additionally, taking advantage of the clipping operation, the prediction residuals can be smoothed, while the distortion for the block may not necessarily increase.