Photoshop - Bring out detail in whites

I saw this video on YouTube and I wonder how effective the methods it suggests are.

1. Add levels adjustment layer > blending soft light > opacity 50%
2. Add levels adjustment layer > blending multiply > opacity 50%
3. Adjust sharpness > amount 175%, radius 1, remove lens blur

Is this more effective than a simple levels > auto? Man, viewing videos is so time consuming and you can hardly see the added details in the video. Give me a list like the one above and sample pictures any day. That's what I'm going to do here. This is the delightfully overexposed original picture:

Using the steps above

Auto levels

Manually adjusting brightness and contrast

I would say the steps do improve the overexposed parts of the image, more so than auto levels. However, it makes the shadow of the duck look harsh. I think manually adjusting brightness and contrast gives the best result. Sometimes, I think I don't use enough of the functions of Photoshop, like blending modes, but this shows that sometimes simple methods are good enough.