Photography explained

Photo retouching is one of a handful of basic and necessary adjustments for photos that photographers will rely on repeatedly to correct flaws or faults ahead of any creative adjustments or ‘looks’.

Perspective correction is not necessary for most photos, but there are times when it will make the difference between an image that looks professional and one that just looks amateurish.

Very often your photo editing software will be able to straighten and crop images at the same time, but there are still times you might want to treat them as two separate tasks.

You’re probably used to digital images being in the RGB mode, where the full range of colors is generated with red, green and blue color ‘channels’. But most photo editing programs offer a color editing mode based around the HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) color model, and this is where it gets really interesting.

Noise is the digital equivalent of grain in film. It’s random electrical signals captured by the photosites on the camera sensor, and usually this background noise level is so low compared to the brightness of the captured picture itself that you just don’t notice it.

White balance is an adjustment to correct and neutralise colors captured with different light sources. The color of light can vary considerably depending on the time of day and whether you’re shooting in natural light or under artificial light.

Video jargon can quickly get complicated. But the basics of video are comparatively simple and easily learned, and the rest can follow from that.

Dynamic range is the camera sensor’s ability to capture detail in very bright and very dark parts of a scene. Cameras (or sensors) with a low dynamic range record dark shadows as a solid black or bright highlights as a featureless white.