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.
Photography explained
Want to know more about photography theory and jargon? Here's a selection of articles that explains some key terms and concepts in what is hopefully plain language.
Cloud storage for photographers: Can you access all your photos everywhere?
Sharing our portfolio online is easy, and there are plenty of file sharing sites to make our photos accessible to you and others online. But if you want to edit and organise your photos on any device, anywhere, the choice is much narrower. Of course, you could just get an old-school portable drive.
Noise and noise reduction
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 and how it works
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 basics: resolution and frame rate
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 and exposure
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.
Picture styles and film simulation with digital cameras
Digital cameras typically offer a range of ‘picture styles’ to suit different subjects or different tastes in color rendition. Canon calls these Picture Styles, Nikon calls them Picture Controls and other camera makers have their own names.
Non-destructive editing and how it works
Traditional photo editing is ‘destructive’. That means every adjustment you make permanently changes the pixels in the photo and there’s no way back unless you’ve saved a copy of the original and you’re willing to start again. ‘Non-destructive’ editing is fully reversible. You can go back and undo or redo all of your editing work at any point in the future. Naturally, there’s a catch
Lens aberrations and what you can do about them
Aberrations, or optical imperfections, exist because no lens is optically perfect. Almost all lenses show aberrations from the ‘perfect’ image.
Color spaces, profiles and color management explained
The whole topic of color management can get pretty dry and technical, but stick with it because there’s information here that’s useful and puts lots of other things in context.