Welcome to the Life after Photoshop photo-editing A-Z. It’s very easy to use – just click a heading to expand a definition of that term. There are links to specific programs and many of the entries link to a tag which will show related articles. I hope you find it useful.
British vs American spellings
This A-Z uses British rather than American spellings, e.g. ‘colour’ rather than ‘color’. Apologies if this is confusing. This link may prove helpful.
H
- HDRHDR stands for 'high dynamic range', a technique that's used to capture scenes with a very high brightness range and employs shooting techniques and software tools to bring the brightest and darkest parts close enough together that they can both be seen in a single viewable image.
- HDR Efex ProHDR Efex Pro is a software plug-in for creating HDR (high dynamic range) effects from single images or bracketing sets of exposures. It's part of the DxO Nik Collection. You can apply preset HDR styles with a single click or adjust and make your own effects using extensive manual controls.
- HD video‘HD’ stands for ‘high definition’ to distinguish it from older, lower resolution video standards. HD actually comes in two formats: standard HD has a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, full HD is 1920 x 1080 pixels. Both use the same 16:9 aspect ratio.
- HealingA process or set of tools for removing an object from a picture or repairing a blemish simply by painting over it. It’s like cloning, except that you don’t have to define a nearby clone ‘source’ to use for the repair – the healing tool chooses and matches pixels automatically.
- High keyA photo where the tones are predominantly bright or white. It’s partly the subject that makes a photographer high key – a white cat on a white cushion, for example, and partly the exposure technique – slight overexposure will give a high key look.
- Highlight recoveryHighlight recovery is a common requirement in digital images. Typically a RAW file will hold on to around another stop (1EV) of highlight detail than an in-camera JPEG, and any decent RAW converter will have highlight recovery tools to bring that detail back.
- HighlightsThe lightest tones in a picture. It’s a pretty vague definition, but most photographers take it to mean tones which are at or near a full, featureless white. Retaining or recovering highlight detail – in bright skies, for example – is a big priority for keen photographers.
- HistogramThe histogram is a graphical display of the brightness values in the picture. The darkest tones are at the left and the brightest on the right, and the vertical bars show the number of pixels for each brightness value. Histograms are an invaluable exposure aid when taking pictures, and when editing them later.
- HistoryMany programs can store a ‘history’ of all the editing changes you’ve made since you opened an image. Using this you can check what you’ve done and even backtrack to an earlier image state if you realise you’ve made a mistake. Some programs can store the history as part of the saved image file, while non-destructive editors like Lightroom will store it indefinitely as part of the image’s adjustment metadata.
- HSL adjustments
- Hue/SaturationA way of adjusting the colours in an image – the Hue adjustment shifts the colour along a continuous spectrum, while the Saturation adjustment changes its intensity. For example, you can shift the hue of leaves away from yellow towards blue and increase their saturation to make the leaves look ‘fresher’.