Q: J

JPEG Standardised, universal file format for digital photos that can be displayed by practically any device without any kind of conversion. It uses powerful compression to reduce the file size of digital photos so that you can get more on to a memory card or a hard disk, and they’re quicker to transfer.” JPEG vs RAW Most digital photos are shot as JPEG images. This is a universal image file format that uses sophisticated compression to keep the files small and manageable. JPEGs are created by processing the RAW data captured by the camera. Some cameras let you save these RAW files instead. The files are larger and you need to process them later on a computer, but they offer the potential for better quality.

Q: K

Keystone correction Another term for correcting converging verticals. The name comes from the ‘keystone’ in arches, which is wider at the top than the bottom. In architectural photography it’s the top of tall buildings that looks narrower, but that’s a small point. The ‘keystone’ term has stuck and is used widely in software. Read more: Perspective correction explained Keywords Keywords are a basic organisational tool for photographers. They are words and phrases you can attach to photographs to help you find or filter them later. Read more: Metadata explained

Q: O

Object removal A common step in image editing and retouching, where you might want to remove sensor spots, litter, power lines or passers-by from an image, for example. Typically, object removal is automatic – the software will fill the space left by the object with surrounding details. Read more: Retouching explained ON1 Photo RAW ON1 Photo RAW is an all-in one image organising and editing program which includes a large array of preset effects and manual tools for manually adjusting and ‘stacking’ effects in layers. Includes tools for black and white and portrait photography and also works as a plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom. Read more: ON1 Photo RAW review | ON1 software Opacity Essentially, this is the same as ‘transparency’, but most software uses ‘opacity’ instead. For example, you can change the opacity of an image layer, or the opacity of an adjustment tool or mask. Read more: Layers explained Orton effect An image effect which combines a sharp version of the scene with a blurred version to create a surreal soft-focus ‘glow’ with basically sharp underlying detail. Overlay mode One of the many blend modes you can apply to image layers (and sometimes adjustment tools) in software. Overlay mode typically increases contrast, using the brightness of the pixels in the ‘overlay’ layer to lighten or darken those of the layer(s) below. Read more: Layers explained

Q: U

Updates (software) Software publishes typically issue minor software updates free to existing users, but are always working on new major version updates, which will bring an additional update/upgrade fee for existing users who want the latest version. Read more: Subscriptions vs single fee software U-Point (DxO) Another term used by software company DxO to describe its Control Point selection and adjustment tools. You place a point over the object or area you want to adjust and nearby areas with the same tone or color will automatically be masked so that you can make highly selective adjustments. Read more: Local adjustments explained Upright tool (Lightroom) A set of perspective controls which can correct converging verticals, skewed horizons and other perspective problems. Lightroom offers a set of automated one-click buttons which often fix the problem immediately, plus a manual tool for correcting more complex or difficult perspective problems. Read more: Perspective correction explained

Question 1

A

Accepted Answer

Aberrations
Optical flaws produced by camera lenses and which are largely unavoidable except in the most expensive or the simplest lens designs.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Adjustment brush
A tool used to ‘paint’ adjustments on to an image manually, and one of the key adjustment tools in Lightroom, for example. You may need to choose the adjustments you want to make, e.g. exposure, saturation, clarity and so on before you start painting although non-destructive photo editors let you make changes to these settings afterwards too. You can change the size, softness and opacity of the Adjustment Brush.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

A/D converter
This is circuitry inside the camera that coverts the analog light values captured by the photosites on the sensor in to digital values. It will also carry out ISO amplification and perhaps noise reduction.
Read more: RAW files explained

Adjustment layer
A special type of layer in image-editing software which is designed to hold adjustments rather than other image layers. It’s a way of ‘stacking’ a series of adjustments to an image without affecting the image layer itself.
Read more: Layers explained | Local adjustments explained

Adobe Camera Raw
Software that works alongside Adobe Photoshop to open and process RAW files before they open in Photoshop itself. Adobe Camera Raw’s tools are also built into Adobe Lightroom. Most people use Adobe Camera Raw to process their RAW files simply because they’re using Photoshop or Lightroom, but other RAW converters are available.
Read more: Adobe software

Adobe RGB
This is a professional colour space offered by more advanced cameras and it captures a slightly wider range of colours than the usual sRGB colour space used by most consumer devices. It can be useful if pictures are destined for commercial print production, but it does introduce complications with colour profiles and monitor calibration.
Read more: Color management explained

Affinity Photo
For a long time Adobe Photoshop has been the only real professional level image-editing program, but software company Serif has launched a professional photo editing software which competes directly with Photoshop at a much lower price – and for a single payment rather than the software subscription system introduced by Adobe. Affinity Photo has been built from the ground up for speed and performance and compatibility with the Photoshop PSD file format.
Read more: Affinity Photo review | Affinity Photo for iPad review

AI (artificial intelligence)
Machine-based learning which interprets the contents of the image in a sophisticated way to produce better enhancements or better object and scene recognition. Skylum’s Accent – AI Filter in Luminar uses artificial intelligence to optimise photos automatically, while Google Photos uses artificial intelligence to identify and search through your pictures.

Album
A kind of ‘virtual’ container for photographs you want to keep together. When you use an album (or ‘collection’) in photo editing software, it keeps the images together without actually moving them on your hard disk.

Analog
A term now used to design old-fashioned chemical processes to capture images rather than digital – so you can get ‘analog’ cameras, ‘analog’ films and ‘analog’ image effects which replicate the look of these old processes.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Analog Efex Pro
Analog Efex Pro is part of the DxO Nik Collection. It recreates the look of old films, darkroom processes and vintage cameras by combining image adjustments and filter effects as presets which you can apply with a single click or customise yourself.”
Read more: DxO software | Film simulation explained | Nik Collection review | Analog Efex Pro review

Anamorphic lens
A lens that ‘squashes the image horizontally to get a wider angle of view captured on the sensor (or film). The image is then ‘desquashed’ later in software or with a suitable projection lens to return it to its correct proportions. It’s a way to get ultra-wide cinematic aspect ratios using regular equipment. It also adds a ‘look’ to out of focus highlights that’s become fashionable right now.
Read more: Aspect ratios explained

Aperture (Apple)
Now discontinued, Aperture was Apple’s Mac-only professional photo organising, processing and non-destructive editing program. It was a direct rival to Lightroom, but while it had far more sophisticated and effective image organising tools, it fell behind for editing tools and was eventually abandoned.

Apple Photos
Apple Photos is the novice-orientated photo organising and editing program supplied as standard with Apple Mac computers and with iOS devices like iPhones and iPads. Your photos are synchronised via Apple iCloud and are available on all your Apple devices.
Read more: Cloud storage explained

As Shot (white balance)
When you shoot RAW files you will be able to change the white balance setting later, but the camera will still store shooting setting you chose in the RAW file. When you open the RAW file in your software, it will read this embedded data and display it as ‘As Shot’ in the white balance settings. You can adjust the settings or apply a new white balance preset, and the ‘As Shot’ setting embedded in the file will still be available if you need to return to it later.
Read more: White balance explained

Aspect ratios
This the picture’s proportions as width versus height. DSLR sensors have a 3:2 ratio, so that photographs are 3 units wide to 2 units high. Most compact camera sensors have a slightly squarer 4:3 aspect ratio. It doesn’t matter what the units are – the ratio stays the same, so a photo could measure 3 inches by 2 inches or 6 meters by 4 meters and still have the same 3:2 aspect ratio. You can shoot in different aspect ratios by cropping the sensor area. HD video is shot in a wider 16:9 ratio.
Read more: Cropping and straightening explained | Video basics explained | Aspect ratios explained

Aurora HDR
HDR software developed in conjunction with HDR specialist Trey Ratcliff. Aurora HDR can work with single images or merge a series of bracketed exposures. You can apply one of many different preset effects or create your own with the manual controls.
Read more: Skylum software | Aurora HDR review

Auto white balance
Auto white balance is the default setting for most photographers. The camera will attempt to determine the color of the ambient lighting and adjust the camera’s processing to produce natural and neutral-looking colors. It generally works well, but can often fail to correct fully for very yellow-orange artificial lighting, and can overcorrect the natural color in landscapes at the start and end of the day.
Read more: White balance explained

Axial chromatic aberration
Chromatic aberration (color fringing) comes in two types. Lateral chromatic aberration is the most obvious sort, showing up as sharp color fringes around object outlines, which are easy to remove digitally. Axial chromatic aberration is less obvious and very difficult to fix digitally. It shows up as bigger, softly rendered color fringes around out of focus objects.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Question 2

B

Accepted Answer

Background (layers)
In programs that support layers, this is how photos are initially opened, as a ‘background layer’ to which you add more layers as required. In Photoshop, a background layer can be ‘promoted’ to a full layer, in case you want to change the order of the layers in your image and move the original photo up and down the layers ‘stack’.
Read more: Layers explained

Barrel distortion
This is where straight lines near the edge of the picture appear to bow outwards, and you see this a lot with zoom lenses at their wideangle setting. It’s most noticeable if the horizon is near the top or bottom of the picture. Barrel distortion is very difficult to eradicate completely from the lens design, but it can be fixed using software, and some cameras now have distortion correction built in. It’s one of a number of common lens aberrations. Telephoto lenses often show the opposite effect, ‘pincushion distortion’.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Batch processing
Applying the same image adjustments to a whole batch of photos. For example, you might choose a black and white conversion style and apply it to all the photos from a particular shooting session. Batch processing can save a lot of time, but only if all the images will benefit from the same settings.

Bit depth
‘Bits’ are the basic building block of digital data, and the more bits of information used in digital images, the subtler the colours and tonal transitions. Bits and pixels are related, in that the greater the ‘bit-depth’ used to create a pixel, the better the quality of the colour/tone information in that pixel. Digital cameras typically capture 10, 12 or 14 bits of data for each pixel, and this is then processed down to produce regular JPEG photos (8 bits) or converted into high-quality 16-bit TIFF files.”
Read more: Bits and bit depth explained | RAW files explained

Black and white photography
The popularity of black and white photography is increasing. Black and white suits some subjects extremely well, drawing more attention to shapes, lighting and composition than is generally possible with colour photography.
Read more: Film simulation explained | Toning and split toning explained | Black and white photography basics

Black and white filters
When you shoot in black and white, the camera or the film is converting different colours into shades of grey. When you use a coloured filter, you’re shifting and changing the brightness of the different colours in the scene, and this changes their shade of grey in the photograph. This is why they’re sometimes called ‘contrast’ filters too. For example, a red filter allows red light through but blocks light of other colours. Anything red in the scene becomes proportionally much brighter, anything opposite to red, like a blue sky, comes out a much darker shade of grey – nearly black, sometimes.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Black point
A slider or eyedropper for selecting which tones in an image should be rendered as a solid black. It would usually be used in a Levels or Curves dialog along with the histogram to make sure the image has the maximum tonal range.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Blacks
A setting or slider used by some programs to pick out the very darkest tones in an image for adjustment. It’s typically used to set the ‘black point’ for an image, or choose which areas can afford to be made a solid black.
Read more: Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Blend modes
Blend modes are used to control the way different layers in an image interact, and they apply not just to other image layers but also non-destructive adjustment layers.
Read more: Layers explained

Blur
Blur can be unwanted or deliberate! Unwanted blur comes from camera shake, subject movement, poor focusing or low-quality lenses, and can often be improved to some degree in software. Deliberate blur can enhance an artistic effect and can be achieved with wide lens apertures and shallow depth of field, specialist tilt lenses, lo-fi lenses or in software. Software offers most control ad can be used for background blur or tilt-shift ‘miniature’ effects, but is often less convincing.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Bokeh
‘Bokeh’ is a Japanese word that describes the particular visual quality of out of focus areas on a picture. Bokeh fans will wax lyrical about the background rendering of certain lenses, while sceptics will wonder what all the fuss is about. It all depends on how sensitive you are to the nuances of images.

Bokeh fringing
Bokeh fringing is a soft color fringing effects seen around out of focus objects. Unlike regular chromatic aberration (lateral chromatic aberration), it’s almost impossible to fix in software. Bokeh fringing is especially relevant for wide aperture lenses designed for attractive background blur, and these often use special optical designs and materials to counteract bokeh fringing.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Borders
Borders and frames are a great way to ‘finish’ off a picture for printing or display, and they’ve come a long way since the unconvincing fake ‘wooden’ frames (and others) that you get in entry-level programs like Photoshop Elements.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Boundary Warp (Lightroom)
A tool in Lightroom that fills in the blank wedges at the edge of a panoramic image stitched together from overlapping frames. Normally, you’d have to crop these off and lose parts of the picture, but the Boundary Warp tool ‘pushes’ parts of the picture out to the edges so that you don’t lose anything.

Bracketing
Taking the same shot at a series of different exposures with the intention of choosing the best one later or merging them together to create an HDR image. Most cameras offer an auto exposure bracketing option. You choose the bracketing interval (the difference between the exposures, typically 1EV) and the number of frames (usually 3, sometimes 5 or even 7). Some cameras offer other types of bracketing, e.g. white balance bracketing or even focus bracketing.

Bridge (Adobe)
Adobe Bridge is the folder and file browser used across Adobe’s Creative Cloud applications. It can be used as a simple browsing tool for Adobe Photoshop and it came as standard with Photoshop when it was sold with a perpetual licence. For many photographers, its a simpler and more predictable image organising tool than Lightroom.”
Read more: Adobe software

Brush tool
A simple manual tool for painting colour on to an image, making a selection or a mask, or applying an adjustment. You can change the size of the brush, its ‘hardness’ and its flow rate or opacity, all of which can help you adjust the effect and the way it’s built up.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Question 3

C

Accepted Answer

C4K
C4K, also known as DCI 4K, is ‘true’ 4K in that it has a horizontal resolution of 4,096 pixels, which is just a little over 4,000 (4K). Almost all 4K video actually shoot 4K UHD, which has a horizontal resolution of 3,840 pixels, a little way below that 4K resolution. C4K sounds more desirable, but the complication is that it’s slightly wider than the 16:9 aspect ratio used by other common video standards (including 4K UHD).
Read more: Video basics explained

CameraBag
CameraBag is an effects program that can apply all sorts of different creative effects to your photos. These use different combinations of filters and adjustments which can also be chosen and adjusted manually.
Read more: CameraBag Pro review

Capture One
Capture One is an all-in-one image capture (tethered shooting), cataloguing and editing software from Danish company Phase One. Born out of its medium format studio camera products, Capture One is now a professional RAW conversion tool for DSLR and mirrorless camera owners too. It’s a premium product and its closest rival is probably Adobe Lightroom.
Read more: Capture One review | Capture One software

Cataloguing software
Software designed to organise large collections of photos using an internal database that speeds up searches and lets you create ‘virtual’ albums and smart albums without actually having to move images on your hard disk. Adobe Lightroom is a good example, using a database ‘catalog’ to organise search and display images. Cataloguing software is more complex and powerful than image ‘browsers’ like Adobe Bridge, which simply show you the contents of folders on your computer.
Read more: Non-destructive editing explained | Metadata explained

CFA (Color Filter Array)
This is a grid of red, green and blue color filters places over the photosites on a camera sensor. This restricts each photosite to capturing red, green or blue brightness values only – without this, sensors would be ‘color blind’. This creates a ‘mosaic’ of red, green and blue pixels in the camera’s RAW data, which must then be ‘demosaiced’ as part of the processing carried out by the camera or RAW processing software to create a viewable, editable image.
Read more: RAW files explained

Channel
The data used to create digital photos is split up into three colour ‘channels’ – red, green and blue, or ‘RGB’. These are then mixed to produce the millions of different colours required for lifelike pictures. In commercial printing, this red, green and blue (RGB) colour model is swapped for cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK), which are the four colours used by commercial printing presses.
Read more: Color management explained

Channel Mixer
A tool in Photoshop for changing the percentage mix of the red, green and blue color channels. It can be used for color adjustments but is most often used to simulate the effect of black and white ‘contrast filters’ when converting color shots to monochrome.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Chroma noise
Chroma noise is one of two components in digital image noise. It’s a random variation in the color (‘chroma’ value) of pixels and pretty easy to correct in camera or in software without any serious compromise in image detail.
Read more: Noise and noise reduction explained

Chromatic aberration
This is a lens aberration that produces colour fringing around the outlines of objects near the edges of the picture. It’s very hard to eradicate completely from lens designs without making them extremely complex or expensive, but it is possible to correct chromatic aberration using software and many cameras will now correct it automatically as they process the image.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Clarity
‘Clarity’ is a localised contrast adjustment much coarser than regular sharpening, which throws larger objects into sharp relief and can add some much needed definition and ‘bite’ to low-contrast scenes.”
“”Structure, microcontrast, clarity and dehaze explained”””

Clipping
For photographers, ‘clipping’ is where the image histogram is cut off abruptly at one or both edges. It means that some image detail is completely lost in solid black shadows (shadow clipping) or completely white highlights (highlight clipping).

Cloning
Cloning is the best-known software retouching technique. Essentially, you pick a nearby area to clone from (the clone ‘source’), and then the clone tool uses this to paint over the area you want to repair. The clone tool is comparatively simple – the real skill is in how you use it and how you choose or vary your clone source area.
Read more: Retouching explained

Cloud storage
Where you store or share images online as well as or instead of storing them on your computer. Cloud storage offers the advantage that your images are accessible everywhere as long as you have an Internet connection, though displaying and downloading images is of course slower than opening them on a hard drive, and uploading images in the first place is slower still. Examples include Apple iCloud, Dropbox and Google Drive.
Read more: Cloud storage explained

CMYK
This is a colour model used in printing processes, where colours are defined in terms of cyan, magenta, yellow and black colour channels (black is represented by the letter ‘K’). Desktop printers use CMYK inks but carry out the conversion from regular RGB photos automatically. In commercial printing, a designer will convert a regular RGB photo to CMYK to check the colour rendition and prepare it for printing.
Read more: Color management explained

Collection
Lightroom‘s name for its ‘virtual’ image containers. Some programs call them ‘albums’, but the terms ‘album’ and ‘collection’ are generally interchangeable. You use Collections to bring together related images with actually changing their location on your hard disk.

Color adjustment
A good term to describe the HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) adjustments provided in many image-editors. You can use these to change the appearance of specific colors in an image while leaving the rest unaltered.
Read more: HSL color editing explained

Color cast
A color cast is where the colors in an image seem to show a general shift, for example the yellow-orange color cast you typically get with pictures taken in domestic artificial lighting, or the bluish skintones of portraits taken in shade under a blue sky. Color casts can often be corrected digitally, or prevented by choose a better white balance setting to take the picture.
Read more: White balance explained

Color Efex Pro
Color Efex Pro is one of the plug-ins in the Nik Collection, now owned and published by DxO. It offers more than 50 filters which can be used individually or combined into a practically limitless array of ‘recipes’. Both can be used to create single-click preset effects.
Read more: Nik Collection review | Color Efex Pro review | DxO software

Color fringing
Color fringing is another term for chromatic aberration, an effect where the lens produces color fringes around object edges. It’s a very common lens aberration which is often corrected digitally. With some sensors and lenses you may also get color fringing around the edges of objects with very bring backlighting, such as leaves on trees against a very bright sky.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Color label
This is a simple tagging tool used by most cataloguing software to help you identify, priorities or otherwise pick out images. You can use color labels for whatever you like, or not use them at all – they’re not compulsory!

Color management
For designers and professional photographers it’s often important to maintain consistent colour rendition from the camera, through to the computer display used for browsing and editing photos and right through to the final output device, generally a printer. Colour management tools use software ‘profiles’ and hardware monitor calibration and printer calibration devices to try to ensure this consistency of colour. It’s a complex process, and it’s worth pointing out that when images are going to be displayed on a screen rather than being printed, you have no control over the colour rendition of the output device. Many photographers don’t use colour management at all.
Read more: Color management explained

Color model
This is the system used by computers and other digital devices for defining colours. In photography, the RGB system is almost universal – colours are defined using red, green and blue colour ‘channels’. In printing, it’s CMYK, or cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Some image-editing processes use Lab mode, which consists of a ‘lightness’ channel and two (‘a’, ‘b’) colour channels.”
Read more: HSL color editing explained | Color management explained

Color noise
One of the two types of digital image noise and caused by random variations in the colour of neighbouring pixels. Colour noise is relatively easy for software to remove without any significant impact on the image quality. Luminance (contrast) noise is the other type, and much more difficult to remove effectively.
Read more: Noise and noise reduction explained

Color space
Different devices can’t always display the same range of colours, so your camera may be able to record a wider range of colours than your computer monitor or tablet can display, for example – in other words, the monitor offers a smaller ‘colour space’. To get round this, there are two main RGB colour spaces you can work on. The sRGB colour space is a smaller, universal colour space that practically any device can match. Adobe RGB is a larger colour space that your camera and printing systems can capture but your monitor probably can’t, which means some complex workarounds and pitfalls and really needs a switch to a more complex colour managed workflow. sRGB is the simplest solution, and (though some will debate this) you’re unlikely to see any real advantage to Adobe RGB in everyday photography.
Read more: Color management explained

Color temperature
A traditional technical measurement for the white balance setting that uses temperature values in degrees Kelvin rather than named presets like ‘Direct Sunlight’, ‘Cloudy’ and so on. Colour temperature is used for choosing and controlling the colour of photographic lighting equipment and you can use it an alternative to white balance presets on more advanced cameras.
Read more: White balance explained

Color wheel
This is a way of describing the full spectrum of colors visually, and is used for color editing in HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) mode, which is more intuitive for color adjustments than the regular RGB (red, green, blue) color model usually used for digital images.
Read more: HSL color editing explained

Compositing
A designer word for assembling an image from multiple layers. These could be two images superimposed and merged, or a combination of photos, shapes and text put together to make an illustration.

Composition
This is the art, or skill, of arranging the objects, perspective and framing of a photograph to achieve the desired visual effect. There are a number of ‘rules’ of composition, including the rule of thirds, the Golden Mean and various other photographic truisms that may or may not prove useful.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Constrain crop
When you make perspective adjustments to a photo you leave empty ‘wedges’ around the outside that you need to crop out. Most programs have a ‘Constrain Crop’ checkbox and will do this automatically. ‘Constrain Crop’ can also mean sticking to the original photo’s aspect ratio when you crop it.
Read more: Cropping and straightening explained

Content aware
A technology created by Adobe and adopted by others to ‘intelligently’ fill areas with surrounding details if you move or delete and object in a photography. When it works, it works well, but sometimes the details and surroundings in the picture just don’t gel properly.
Read more: Retouching explained

Contrast
Contrast, in its simplest sense, is the different in brightness between two tone. In photography it’s usually taken to mean the brightness range of a picture – the difference in brightness between the brightest and darkest parts of a picture.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained

Contrast filter
A color filter used in black and white photography to change the shade of grey that colours are reproduced as. They’re called ‘contrast’ filters because they can change the contrast (in shades of grey) between different colours.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Control point (DxO)
A special selection and adjustment tool used by the Nik Collection plug-ins and DxO PhotoLab, control points operate over an adjustable circular radius and select only tones similar to the area under the central target. You can use them to adjust Brightness, Contrast, Structure, Saturation and more.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Converging verticals
Another term for the ‘keystoning’ effect you see in pictures of tall buildings, for example, where the sides appear to converge inwards. It happens when you tilt the camera to take the shot and is a normal perspective effect, not a fault. You correct converging verticals in software, though the more exaggerated the effect, the more of the image will be lost.
Read more: Perspective correction explained

Corner shading
Corner shading is another term for ‘vignetting’, where the corners or the edges of a picture look darker than the center. This is a common phenomenon with lenses, though today’s lens designers work hard to eliminate it. Some photographers feel it can add to the ‘look’ of an image, however.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Copyright
This is the ownership of any photography or video. By default, you own the copyright unless you were commissioned by a client or an employer to do the work for them and where the work would then be owned by them. There is a Copyright field in the IPTC metadata for photos where you can enter your details. It’s also possible to add a visible watermark to photos.
Read more: Metadata explained

Creative Cloud (Adobe)
Adobe’s online image sharing, storage, synchronisation and collaboration service. Many of Adobe’s workflow tools now rely on its Creative Cloud services.
Read more: Cloud storage explained | Adobe software

Cropping
There are two main reasons for cropping photos, one creative, one practical. You may want to crop out unwanted objects near the edges of the picture, or you may need to crop it to fit different print sizes and aspect ratios.
Read more: Cropping and straightening explained

Cross processing
Cross processing is an old film processing technique, where films were deliberately processed in the wrong chemicals – using slide film chemicals for negative films and vice versa – to produce creative and surreal color shifts. Nowadays, lots of photo editors offer ‘cross processed’ ‘looks’.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Culling images
‘Culling’ is the process of deleting unwanted images so that they don’t clutter up your hard drive, ‘bury’ all your best shots or just get in the way generally. Some photographers cull images on import, some do it later and some keep all their images and use cataloguing tools to filter out the best ones.

Curves
Curves are one of the most fundamental image adjustment tools in photo editing software. They’re used to shift different parts of the pictures tonal range to make them darker or lighter, though they can also be used for color adjustments.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Cyanotype
A black and white process that produces prints with a strong cyan tint. You can recreate the cyanotype look digitally using toning and split toning techniques.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Question 4

D

Accepted Answer

Darks
The parametric Tone Curve panel in Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC splits the tonal range up into four sections: Shadows (the darkest), Darks, Lights and Highlights. This is slightly more precise than photographers’ usual description of ‘shadows’, ‘midtones’ and ‘highlights’.
Read more: Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Date and time setting
A basic setting on digital cameras that’s more important than it sounds. It embeds the date and time the picture or video was shot invisibly in the image metadata, and if you don’t set this on the camera your image will be given a default date and time way back in the past which will make them display out of order in your photo organizing software.
Read more: Metadata explained

DeepPRIME
AI-powered denoising process from French company DxO and used in DxO PhotoLab and PureRAW. It combines the raw demosaicing process with denoising to produce spectacular improvements in image quality in high ISO pictures.
Read more: PhotoLab review | PureRAW review

Dehaze
This is a relatively new tool in Lightroom and other programs. What the Dehaze effect does is to split the image up into different tonal areas – such as the sky and the foreground in a landscape photo – and then maximise the contrast within these areas. The effect is strongest in areas which are quite pale and washed out, such as weak skies or distant hazy horizons.

Demosaicing
A key part of the process of converting the RAW data captured by the camera sensor from a mosaic of red, green and blue color data into a full color image.
Read more: RAW files explained

Device profile
A small file used in color managed workflows to describe the properties of a printer or a monitor, for example. The device profile is used to ‘correct’ the rendition of that device to make it match all the others in your setup.
Read more: Color management explained

Dfine
Software plug in for reducing noise in images and part of the Nik Collection. Like many other noise reduction programs, Dfine analyses the image and calculates a noise reduction profile. It’s also possible to define the areas used for analysis manually.
Read more: Nik Collection review | Dfine review | DxO software

Diffraction
Diffraction is an image softening effect caused by very narrow lens apertures. It happens because light tends to bend when it passes over the edge of an aperture, and with small apertures a larger proportion of the light is diffracted (scattered).
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Distortion
Distortion is a general term for when lenses fail to show straight lines as straight and instead show them as curve or bowed. You can get barrel distortion, where straight lines appear to bow outwards towards the edges of the picture, and pincushion distortion where they bow inwards. Fisheye distortion is an extreme example with extreme wideangle lenses where no attempt is made to correct the distortion.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Distortion correction
Many lenses create distortion, where straight lines take on a slightly bowed appearance near the edges of the frame. Lens designers try to minimise distortion, but it’s still common in zoom lenses. Many cameras and software applications now have distortion correction features, however, were the distortion is corrected digitally rather than optically.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

DNG
A contraction of ‘Digital NeGative’, a ‘universal’ RAW file format created by Adobe with the aim of standardising RAW formats. It has caught on to some degree and can be useful in some workflows, but DNG files come in many flavors, and while Adobe software can handle all of them, other software may not.
Read more: RAW files explained

Dodge and burn
Dodging and burning is an old black and white technique for darkening or lightening different areas of a print while it’s being developed. Dodging and burning is a creative process that’s just as relevant with digital images. It’s done to enhance the tones, the composition and the balance of a picture to create a visually satisfying image.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

DxO
Paris-based software company famous for its optical research, testing systems and software. It publishes DxO PhotoLab (previously known as DxO Optics Pro), FilmPack and ViewPoint, and has recently acquired the Nik Collection from Google.
Read more: DxO software

DxO Optics Pro
DxO Optics Pro was a high-quality RAW processing and lens correction tool with some sophisticated global image adjustment tools and image effect presets. It’s since been superseded by DxO PhotoLab, which now has local adjustment tools following DxO’s purchase of the Nik Collection and its control point technology.
Read more: DxO software

Dynamic range
This is the brightness range the camera can capture before starting to lose detail in bright areas (like the sky) and dense, dark shadows. Generally, the larger the camera’s sensor, the better its dynamic range. RAW files capture a slightly wider dynamic range than JPEGs.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained

Question 5

E

Accepted Answer

Edge softness
A very common characteristic of camera lenses – only the most professional and expensive lenses are sharp from edge to edge. Often, a degree of edge softness goes unnoticed, and it can be improved in software if it’s not too bad.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Effects
Any image adjustment that produces a ‘look’ characteristic of specific photographic or darkroom techniques. It can include infra-red effects, as created by infra-red film, a ‘polarising’ effect to simulate the results from using a polarising filter on the lens, a ‘tilt-shift’ effect to replicate the shallow depth of field of an extreme close-up and so on. Effects can sometimes be applied in-camera but are more likely to be added in software.

Erase
A blanket term for a tool designed to remove objects in a scene, for example, or parts of a selection or a mask you’ve just created.

EXIF data
EXIF data is information recorded automatically by the camera and embedded in the image file. It includes the camera model, the lens used, the exposure and ISO settings and the date and time the shot was taken. EXIF data can be very useful later on, especially in image cataloguing software, where you can use it to sort, search and filter your images.
Read more: Metadata explained

Export
More and more photo editing applications now work non-destructively, so that the editing changes you make are stored alongside the image in a metadata file or within the software’s image browser, and are not applied directly to the image. To produce a photo with your changes ‘baked in’, you have to export a finished version of the image.
Read more: Non-destructive editing explained

Exposure
Getting the ‘exposure’ right means using a combination of shutter speed and aperture settings that deliver the right amount of light to the sensor.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained

Exposure latitude
Exposure latitude is a term used to describe a film’s ability to tolerate overexposure or underexposure, and to capture a high brightness range in a scene without losing extreme shadow or highlight detail. In the digital age, ‘exposure latitude’ equates to dynamic range.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained

Exposure Value (EV)
A numerical value given to the amount of light in a scene. For example, bright sunlight might produce an EV of 17. In practice, cameras deal only in shutter speeds and lens apertures and you’re only likely to see EV values on handheld light meters.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained

Exposure X
Exposure X is an all-in-one photo browsing, organising and editing tool that concentrates on replicating classic film and darkroom effects but is also a very effective everyday image-editor, with fully non-destructive editing tools and support for virtual copies.
Read more: Exposure X review | Exposure Software

External editor
Many image organising and cataloguing tools can send images to other programs for further editing. These may be specially designed ‘plug-ins’, if you’re using Photoshop or Lightroom, or regular standalone programs (‘external editors’) in the case of Capture One, say. The edited image is then returned back to your ‘host’ program.
Read more: Plug-ins and external editors explained

Question 6

F

Accepted Answer

Film simulation
Software that replicates film ‘looks’ is increasingly popular perhaps because it sparks memories and associations that add another layer of complexity to an image.
Read more: Film simulation explained | RAW files explained | Black and white photography basics

FilmPack (DxO)
A software plug-in/add-on published by DxO software. It aims to replicate the appearance of classic films and darkroom processes using film simulations, grain simulation, light leaks, borders and more.
Read more: FilmPack review | DxO software | Film simulation explained

Filters (cataloguing)
Image cataloguing software stores a great deal of information about your images and you can often use ‘filters’ to quickly pick out photos with specific ratings, color labels, keywords or other characteristics.

Flatten (layers)
When you add layers to an image they exist separately and can be edited individually. Sometimes it’s useful to ‘flatten’ all these layers into a single layer which incorporates all the different adjustments, masks and blend modes. Alternatively, you can ‘export’ an image with all the layers flattened while still preserving all the layers in your edited image.
Read more: Layers explained

Folders (browsing)
This is an important distinction in image cataloguing and browsing software. Some programs can display the contents of your folders exactly as they are on your hard disk, but others supplement these with Albums or Collections which bring images together in ‘virtual’ collections without changing their location on your computer.

FPS (video)
FPS stands for ‘frames per second’ but is often referred to as ‘frame rate’. It’s a central part of video settings, and while there are certain standard frame rates for different territories and shooting styles, it’s also possible to vary the frame rate to create slow motion or fast motion effects.
Read more: Video basics explained

Frame rate (FPS)
‘Frame rate’ can mean the number of frames per second captured by a camera in burst mode (continuous shooting) or the ‘frame rates’ offered in video recording.
Read more: Video basics explained

Frames and borders
A digital effect you can apply to images as a finishing touch. Pretend wooden or silver frames are hopelessly kitsch (why not use the real thing?) but many programs now offer convincing and attractive ‘film’ borders or rough handmade-looking print borders which can really enhance a vintage ‘analog’ effect. For black and white prints, a narrow black key line added digitally can set the image off perfectly within a larger physical frame.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Full HD
Video with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. It’s sometimes abbreviated to ‘1080 video’.
Read more: Video basics explained

Question 7

G

Accepted Answer

Gamut
Gamut is another word for the range of colors that fit in a ‘color space’. So you would say, for example, that Adobe RGB has a wider ‘gamut’ than sRGB, or that a high-end monitor for photographers can display the Adobe RGB gamut.
Read more: Color management explained

Gaussian blur
A generic kind of blur often used to soften image detail or masks. There are more advanced ‘lens blur’ and ‘box blur’ effects for more realistic looking results.

Geometry
‘Geometry’ is the name of a panel in Lightroom for correcting converging verticals and other perspective issues, but it’s also a useful general term for perspective corrections, cropping and straightening.
Read more: Cropping and straightening explained | Perspective correction explained

Golden hour
In photography, this is the hour after sunrise or the hour before sunset, where the sun is low in the sky and casts an attractive, warm light that makes landscapes look more appealing. Sometimes it’s possible to replicate this effect in software – Skylum Luminar has a ‘Golden Hour’ filter.

GPS
A Global Positioning System that uses satellite data to pinpoint your position when you take a picture. Smartphones have this built in, but most cameras don’t. Location information is stored as part of your image metadata.
Read more: Metadata explained

Gradient mask
An image mask that transitions from clear to opaque gradually using a soft gradient. It could be used to darken a bright sky in a landscape shot, for example, without producing a hard edge where the adjustment takes effect.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Grading
Grading, or color grading, is a video term to describe color adjustments during video editing. It’s common to apply LUTs or specific color palettes to enhance movie footage.
Read more: LUTs explained

Graduated filter
Graduated filters are used most for outdoor shots where there’s a bright sky and a much darker landscape beneath it. Adding a graduated filter digitally gives you a lot more control, and with a ‘digital’ grad you can mask out tall objects so that they aren’t darkened along with the sky.

Grain
Film grain is caused by the random clumping of silver halide grains (black and white) or dye clouds (colour film) – the individual grains or colour spots are too small to see. Grain is one a film characteristic that was largely unpopular at the time, but is now considered an intrinsic part of that film ‘look’.
Read more: Film simulation explained | Black and white photography basics

Greyscale
An image mode where the color data is discarded to produce just different shades of grey. Greyscale mode consists of just a single ‘grey’ channel, not the red, green and blue (RGB) channels of color images. It’s a simple and crude way of creating black and white images, but other methods of converting to black and white preserve the RGB channels and offer more control.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Question 8

H

Accepted Answer

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.
Read more: Video basics explained

HDR
HDR 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.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained

HDR Efex Pro
HDR 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.
Read more: Nik Collection review | HDR Efex Pro review |
DxO software

Heal
A tool that’s related to cloning but works different. With a heal tool you don’t have to define a source; instead the tool fills the area to be healed automatically – though in some software it will show the heal source area afterwards so that you can move it if necessary.
Read more: Retouching explained

HEIF/HEIC/HEVC
HEIF is a relatively new ‘high efficiency’ file format which allows for different variations, such has HEIC for stills and HEVC for video. Not all software supports these formats but devices that use them, e.g. Apple devices, will typically export versions in more standard formats too.

Highlight recovery
Highlight 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.”
Read more: Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Highlights
The 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.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained | Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Histogram
The 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.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained | Levels and curves explained | Black and white photography basics

History
Many 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
HSL stands for ‘hue’, ‘saturation’, ‘lightness’, and it’s a way of displaying different color ranges in photographs. HSL adjustments let you change the brightness, saturation and hue of individual colors or color ranges.
Read more: Color management explained | HSL color editing explained

Hue/Saturation
A 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’.
Read more: HSL color editing explained

Question 9

I

Accepted Answer

iCloud
Apple’s cloud-based storage service, used extensively by its mobile devices and apps, such as Apple Photos. You get a certain amount of storage free with an Apple ID, but extra storage requires a subscription.
Read more: Cloud storage explained

Importing images
With some programs you can’t just open an image straight away, you have to import it into the software’s catalog first. This is how database-driven cataloguing programs like Lightroom, Capture One and Aperture work.

IPTC metadata
This is image metadata added by the user to help identify and describe images, and can include keywords, copyright information, captions, location data and more.
Read more: Metadata explained

Iris
This is the ‘video’ term for lens aperture, so that a videographer will talk about adjusting the ‘iris’, not changing the lens aperture. Aperture diaphragms in lenses do resemble an iris.
Read more: Video basics explained

ISO
This setting increases the camera sensor’s sensitivity to light. Each ISO step doubles the sensitivity, so it’s easy to use ISO as another exposure control alongside shutter speed and lens aperture. The more you increase the ISO, though, the more the image quality degrades. ISO adjustment is usually carried out by the camera’s A/D converter, which ‘amplifies’ the light values captured by the sensor.
Read more: Noise and noise reduction explained | RAW files explained

Question 10

J

Accepted Answer

JPEG
Standardised, universal file format for digital photos that can be displayed by practically any device without any kind of conversion. It uses powerful compression to reduce the file size of digital photos so that you can get more on to a memory card or a hard disk, and they’re quicker to transfer.”

JPEG vs RAW
Most digital photos are shot as JPEG images. This is a universal image file format that uses sophisticated compression to keep the files small and manageable. JPEGs are created by processing the RAW data captured by the camera. Some cameras let you save these RAW files instead. The files are larger and you need to process them later on a computer, but they offer the potential for better quality.

Question 11

K

Accepted Answer

Keystone correction
Another term for correcting converging verticals. The name comes from the ‘keystone’ in arches, which is wider at the top than the bottom. In architectural photography it’s the top of tall buildings that looks narrower, but that’s a small point. The ‘keystone’ term has stuck and is used widely in software.
Read more: Perspective correction explained

Keywords
Keywords are a basic organisational tool for photographers. They are words and phrases you can attach to photographs to help you find or filter them later.
Read more: Metadata explained

Question 12

L

Accepted Answer

Lab mode
A color model which splits colors into a luminance (L) channel and two a and b color channels. It’s used very occasionally in photography for certain editing tasks where the separation of brightness values from color information is useful.
Read more: Color management explained

Lateral chromatic aberration
A common lens aberration that produces color fringes around the edges of objects, and an effect that gets stronger towards the edges of the frame. It happens with lenses that can’t focus different wavelengths of light (colors) at precisely the same point. These days it can be corrected quite easily in-camera or with software later.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Layers
Layers come in a couple of different types. There are the image layers used for image montages, but there are also adjustment and/or effects layers used to change the appearance of a photo rather than combining it with another one.
Read more: Layers explained

Lens corrections
No lens is perfect. All lenses display aberrations to some degree, including distortion, chromatic aberration (colour fringing) and vignetting (corner shading). An increasing number of programs now offer automatic lens corrections which can identify the lens used to take a shot and apply a specially-calibrated correction profile from that lens.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained | Perspective correction explained

Lens profile
Almost all lenses suffer from aberrations, including distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting. These are difficult to eliminate optically in the lens design, so software publishers are increasingly offering lens correction profiles to do this digitally. The software can identify the lens used from the image’s EXIF data and then find and apply the correct profile automatically.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Levels
Levels adjustments are one of the most basic yet most important things you can do when enhancing photos. It’s a quick and simply way to maximise contrast and tonal without clipping (cutting off) any details in the extreme shadows and highlights.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

License (software)
When you ‘buy’ software you’re actually just buying a license to use it, not the actual software itself. There is an ongoing debate about the pros and cons of single-fee versus subscription software.
Read more: Subscriptions vs single fee software

Light falloff
Light falloff is both a general term for a loss of brightness towards the edges off a photo with some lenses, and a tool in Capture One designed to counteract it.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Light leak
Old and cheap film cameras have poor seals and badly-fitting backs that may let light through on to the film inside. This produces pale streaks across the image or at the edges and has become associated with an ‘old camera’ look. Some programs now replicate light leaks digitally in a variety of colours, patterns and orientations.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Lightness
One of the three key settings in the HSL color model (Hue, Saturation, Lightness). Usually images are edited in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) mode, but color adjustments are more often made using HSL settings.
Read more: HSL color editing explained

Lights
You can think of the tonal range of a photo as consisting of shadows, midtones and highlights, but Lightroom, for example, handles it slight differently in its parametric curves panel, offering ‘shadows’, ‘darks’, ‘lights’ and ‘highlights’, effectively splitting what we’d think of as midtones into ‘darks’ and ‘lights’.
Read more: Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Lightroom
Lightroom is an all-in-one photo cataloguing, organising and editing tool that also synchronised with a mobile app so that you can browse and share your images while you’re on the move. It uses the same RAW conversion engine and tools as Adobe Camera Raw, which comes with Photoshop, but comes in two versions: Lightroom Classic CC uses the same desktop-based storage system and tools as the ‘old’ Lightroom, while Lightroom CC is a new stripped-down version with a simpler interface which uses paid-for cloud storage.
Read more: Lightroom review | Adobe Photography Plans

Lightroom Classic
Lightroom Classic is the traditional desktop-based version of Lightroom, as opposed to the newer cloud-based Lightroom CC (now simply called ‘Lightroom’ by Adobe).
Read more: Lightroom Classic review | Adobe Photography Plans

Lightroom Mobile
An app for iOS or Android devices which works alongside the desktop Lightroom app to display images you’ve synchronised via Creative Cloud. When sync a Collection in the desktop app, that Collection and its images will appear in Lightroom Mobile. You can view and even edit images in Lightroom Mobile and your changes will be synchronised with the desktop version.
Read more: Adobe software

Lightroom Web
Lightroom Web is a browser based tool for viewing and editing images stored in the cloud by Lightroom. It does not have all of Lightroom’s tools, but is very useful nonetheless.
Read more: Adobe software

Lights
The does not refer to ‘lights’ as in ‘lighting’, but ‘lights’ as in tonal adjustments to images. Most photographers are used to talking about ‘shadows’, ‘midtones’ and ‘highlights’, but Adobe’s tone curve adjustments split image tones into four quadrants not three – ‘shadows’, ‘darks’, ‘lights’ and ‘highlights’. In this context, ‘lights’ can be thought of as ‘bright midtones’.

Linear DNG
A special ‘part-processed’ RAW format developed by Adobe but used and supported by a number of other software publishers. Linear DNG files have basic image demosaicing and corrections carried out already, but preserve the extended tonal and color range of RAW files. DxO PureRAW uses Linear DNGs to create ‘RAW’ files for other software with its own advanced RAW processing and lens corrections already applied.

Linear gradient
Sometimes used as just another term for ‘linear mask’, it offers a straight-line transition from an adjusted area to unadjusted. It’s usually a soft transition not a hard one, and you can vary the width of the transition zone. Linear masks are used most often for darkening skies in landscape shots, where they are like the digital equivalent of a graduated filter. A linear gradient can also be a painting tool for applying gradients (not adjustments) to images.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Local adjustments
Adjustments made only to specific areas in a photo, not the whole picture. You pick out the areas you want to adjust with selections, masks or brush tools. The term ‘local adjustments’ is usually used with non-destructive editors like Lightroom or Capture One. In an old-school photo editor like Photoshop, you’d probably talk about ‘selections’ and ‘masks’ and maybe ‘adjustment layers’.
Read more: Layers explained | Local adjustments explained

Location data
Position information stored in image metadata, either by a smartphone or a camera with a GPS sensor. It’s also possible to add location data to images later in software, by dragging photos on to a map.
Read more: Metadata explained

Log profile (video)
A special ‘flat’ image profile which captures a much higher brightness and color range than regular video, but then needs to be edited and graded later in video editing software to restore a natural look. Log profiles are a kind of half-way house to RAW capture for cameras or workflows that don’t support RAW video.
Read more: Video basics explained | LUTs explained

Lossless compression
Compression is used widely in digital photography and video to reduce file sizes. ‘Lossless compression’ reduces file size but without sacrificing any image data. The gains are modest, however, compared to those from ‘lossy compression’, which offers compromise between image quality and file size. TIFF files use ‘lossless’ compression, JPEGs use ‘lossy’ compression.
Read more: RAW files explained

Loupe
In traditional film photography, this is a small magnifying eyepiece for examining the detail in a negative, slide or print. In digital imaging it’s a magnifying view for use on-screen. Aperture and Capture One use a digital representation of a loupe, while Lightroom has a Loupe view where you can zoom in and out.

Luma curve
Most curves adjustments in photo editing are carried out on the image’s RGB channels, either all together (to maintain the same color balance) or individually (to produce color shifts). RGB curve adjustments, however, produce changes to image saturation at the same time. Luma curve adjustments do not. Here, only the luma (luminance) values are altered, not the color values. As a result, with luma curve adjustments only the contrast is changed, not the saturation.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Luminance masking
A way of masking an image based in brightness values, so that bright tones are masked progressively more than dark tones (or vice versa). It’s a way of confining adjustments to specific tones in the image. It’s also used by some software to modify and target existing masks more effectively.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Luminance noise
The chief component in image noise and the one that’s most difficult to remove because software can’t easily distinguish between random image noise and real image detail. The result is that the more noise reduction you apply, the more you tend to lose fine image detail, resulting in images with obvious and objectionable ‘smoothing’.
Read more: Noise and noise reduction explained

Luminar
Luminar is a comparatively new image-editing software that offers instant effects presets made with a range of different filters and tools which you can combine and adjust manually. It offers easily-customised ‘workspaces’ which contain only the tools you need and which makes the interface as straightforward as possible.
Read more: Luminar 4 review | Luminar AI review | Skylum software

Lutify.me
Lutify.me is a company that makes LUTs (lookup tables) for both video and photography, with versions for many popular photo editing programs and an online LUT previewer.
Read more: Lutify.me review | LUTs explained

LUTs
LUT is short for Look Up Table. It’s a kind of conversion profile that ‘remaps’ the luminance and colour values in an image on to new values. LUTs are widely used in cinematography to create a certain ‘look’ and they have now captured the attention of software publishers.
Read more: LUTs explained | Film simulation explained | Black and white photography basics

Question 13

M

Accepted Answer

Magic Brush (Capture One)
A tool in Capture One where you can quickly brush across key areas of an object you want to select or mask. The Magic Brush will then automatically detect similar tones and outlines to mask the whole subject.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Masks
Masks are related to selections, but they’re a more permanent way of masking out adjustments made to an image. For example, you might make an initial selection in an image-editor and then convert it into a layer mask which can be saved with the file and re-edited later if necessary.
Read more: Layers explained | Local adjustments explained

Merge (layers)
When you’re working in software that supports multiple layers and layer types, it’s sometimes useful to merge two or more layers before you carry on with your editing. It can simplify the image for further editing if you’re happy to commit to some of the changes you’ve made.
Read more: Layers explained

Metadata
Any information embedded in a digital photo. It can include time, date and shooting information (EXIF data) embedded by the camera, keyword, caption and copyright (IPTC data) added by image cataloguing programs and, sometimes, image processing data added by non-destructive image-editing programs.
Read more: Metadata explained | Non-destructive editing explained

Microcontrast
Microcontrast is a relatively new type of detail adjustment somewhere between regular sharpening and clarity – and not unlike ‘structure’. All of these techniques make objects, edges and textures stand out more clearly by exaggerating the contrast around them. DxO’s Microcontrast adjustment is particularly effective at doing this without creating edge halos or ‘glow’ effects around object outlines.

Midtones
A broad terms used to describe the middle tones in an image (who would have guessed?) between the darkest tones (‘shadows’) and lightest tones (‘highlights’).
Read more: Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Midtone contrast
Increased contrast in the middle tones of an image can give it extra impact. The idea is to boost the image contrast where it counts, but without making the shadows too dark or the highlights too bright – without ‘clipping’ the histogram.
Read more: Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Miniature effect
Also called ‘tilt shift’, this effect uses selective blurring to create the optical illusion that you’re looking at a tiny model of the world rather than the real thing.

Mobile photography
Photography based around using a smartphone or tablet to take, edit and share pictures. Many smartphones now have highly sophisticated camera arrays, advanced camera apps which include filters, effects and editing tools to rival those on desktop computers and, of course, the ability to publish images immediately and share them on social media.
Read more: Cloud storage explained

Monitor calibration
Monitors rarely display colours with complete accuracy, so some professionals use calibration kits that use a sensor to read the monitor’s colours and then apply a software profile to correct the display.
Read more: Color management explained

Multiply mode
This is a layer blending mode that superimposes the brightness values of the top layer on the one below. It’s useful if the top layer has areas of darker tones that you want to superimpose on the layer below.
Read more: Layers explained

Question 14

N

Accepted Answer

ND filter
An ND, or ‘Neutral Density’ filter goes in front of a lens to reduce the amount of light by a fixed amount. ND filters are used in photography to allow long exposure times in bright light to blur skies and surf in landscape shots, for example. They are used differently in video, mostly to control the exposure without changing the shutter angle (shutter speed) or iris (aperture) setting, which would change the look of the video.
Read more: Video basics explained

Nik Collection (DxO)
The Nik Collection is an important collection of plug-ins once published by Nik Software but then taken over by Google when it bought the company. Google then made the Nik Collection free but it has now been bought for future commercial development by DxO.
Read more: Nik Collection review | DxO software

Noise
Random ‘speckling’ in an image caused by variations in the light levels captured by the photosites on the sensor. Noise is worse with the smaller photosites on small sensors and at higher ISO settings generally. You can get ‘chroma’ (coloured) noise and ‘luminance’ noise (general ‘grittiness’) the same colour as the background.
Read more: Noise and noise reduction explained

Noise reduction
Noise reduction can either take place inside the camera as the image is processed or later on in software. Noise reduction can be especially useful at higher ISO settings, but some noise reduction processes do more harm than good, smearing fine details and producing soft and hazy images.
Read more: Noise and noise reduction explained | RAW files explained

Non-destructive editing
Software which doesn’t make any direct changes to the pixels in a photo, but saves processing instructions alongside it. These instructions are used to change the appearance of the photo when it’s displayed and can be applied permanently to a new ‘exported’ image.
Read more: Non-destructive editing explained | Metadata explained

Question 15

O

Accepted Answer

Object removal
A common step in image editing and retouching, where you might want to remove sensor spots, litter, power lines or passers-by from an image, for example. Typically, object removal is automatic – the software will fill the space left by the object with surrounding details.
Read more: Retouching explained

ON1 Photo RAW
ON1 Photo RAW is an all-in one image organising and editing program which includes a large array of preset effects and manual tools for manually adjusting and ‘stacking’ effects in layers. Includes tools for black and white and portrait photography and also works as a plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom.
Read more: ON1 Photo RAW review | ON1 software

Opacity
Essentially, this is the same as ‘transparency’, but most software uses ‘opacity’ instead. For example, you can change the opacity of an image layer, or the opacity of an adjustment tool or mask.
Read more: Layers explained

Orton effect
An image effect which combines a sharp version of the scene with a blurred version to create a surreal soft-focus ‘glow’ with basically sharp underlying detail.

Overlay mode
One of the many blend modes you can apply to image layers (and sometimes adjustment tools) in software. Overlay mode typically increases contrast, using the brightness of the pixels in the ‘overlay’ layer to lighten or darken those of the layer(s) below.
Read more: Layers explained

Question 16

P

Accepted Answer

Panorama
Panoramas are extra-wide images once captured with specially-adapted film cameras but now created digitally by ‘stitching’ a series of overlapping frames. Some cameras can do this internally but not always at full resolution, and it’s more usually to carry out this panorama stitching on a computer.

Parametric curves
A different way of making curves adjustments in Lightroom and other programs that splits the image into different tonal ranges to make adjustments more intuitive, e.g. ‘shadows’, ‘darks’, ‘lights’ and ‘highlights’.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Perpetual license (software)
This is where you pay a single fee for a licence to use a software application for as long as you like. In practice, software dates quickly and you will probably need to upgrade when a future version arrives, which will bring a further upgrade fee.
Read more: Subscriptions vs single fee software

Perspective correction
Perspective correction is fixing problems like converging verticals in shots of tall buildings and making architectural interiors properly square instead of skewed or tilted. It’s different to lens corrections, which are designed to fix lens distortion and other aberrations.
Read more: Perspective correction explained

Perspective Efex
A plug-in in the DxO Nik Collection which is used for perspective correction, such as converging verticals in pictures of buildings.
Read more: Nik Collection review | Perspective Efex review | Perspective correction explained | DxO software

PhotoDirector (CyberLink)
An all-in-one photo organizing, editing and effects program that’s not unlike Lightroom but offers a wider range of consumer-orientated tools which cross over into Photoshop territory – though PhotoDirector is very much a closed system not designed to work with plug-ins or external editors.

Photography Plan (Adobe)
A subscription plan which includes Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC. It’s designed for photographers and does offer very good value for money compared to the old scheme, where you paid a much larger amount for a ‘perpetual’ licence, and also had to pay to upgrade to new versions.
Read more: Adobe Photography Plans | Subscriptions vs single fee software

PhotoLab (DxO)
DxO PhotoLab is the replacement for the old DxO Optics Pro, adding in local adjustment tools when DxO bought the Nik Collection and its technologies from Google. PhotoLab is now a powerful all image browsing, raw processing, lens correction and editing tool, and is renowned for the image quality it can create.
Read more: PhotoLab review | DxO software

Photoshop
Rightly regarded as the king of image-editing programs, Photoshop is the most powerful program there is for image enhancement, correction and manipulation, though it does not have the image cataloguing tools or the range of special effects offered by some rivals.
Read more: Adobe Photography Plans

Photoshop Elements
Photoshop Elements is a cut-down version of Photoshop which has been simplified for beginners and a casual photographers. It includes its own Organizer application for browsing and searching both photos and videos, and has a Guided mode to show how different image effects can be achieved. Most serious photographers are likely find its family-orientated approach and rather dated image effects off-putting. But it is quite cheap, and available on a perpetual licence.
Read more: Adobe software

Picture style
Cameras usually offer a range of picture ‘styles’ such as ‘Standard’, for neutral results, ‘Vivid’ for richer colours, ‘Portrait’ for gentler tones and more. These are applied to JPEG images saved by the camera. If you shoot RAW files you can choose the picture style later on.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Pincushion distortion
This is where straight lines near the edge of the picture appear to bow inwards. It’s not as common as barrel distortion, but you do see it quite a lot with telephoto zoom lenses when the lens is set to its maximum focal length. You may not notice it with many types of subject, but it can be corrected with software later anyway.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Pixelmator
Pixelmator is a low-cost image-editor and illustration tool for Mac and iOS which has a clean and simple interface but powerful editing, retouching, selection and layering tools and a range of customisable effects. It also has painting tools and vector drawing tools, making it equally suitable for art projects, illustrations and diagrams.
Read more: Pixelmator Pro review

Plug-in
Plug ins are like add-on programs which work from within your regular software. They provide specialised effects or in-depth tools – or simply a an easier way of working – that aren’t part of mainstream photo-editing applications.
Read more: Plug-ins and external editors explained

Point curve
This is the traditional method of making curves adjustments in photo editing software. You add a control ‘point’ to the curve and then drag it up and down or left or right to change the shape of the curve. You can add multiple points to create complex curve shapes.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Polarizing filter
Polarising filters darken blue skies and can cut through reflections and glare in water, glass and polished surfaces. They come in two types: linear polarisers are cheaper and older and don’t work well with modern autofocus systems; circular polarisers are more expensive but they are the type needed for modern cameras. Polarising filters are often used to intensify blue skies in landscape and travel shots and it is possible to create a digital polarising effect.

Portrait enhancement
Portrait enhancement and retouching is a controversial topic, and rightly so, but there are still plenty of photographers and clients who prefer some sympathetic image adjustments. Portrait enhancement typically includes skin smoothing, blemish removal, eye and mount enhancement. Many tools can also narrow faces and noses and widen eyes.
Read more: Retouching explained

Post crop vignette
Normally, if you apply a vignette effect to a photo and then crop the photo you will crop off some of that vignette effect at the edges, too. However, Lightroom‘s ‘post-crop’ vignette will re-apply the vignette settings after the image is cropped so that you don’t lose the effect. Skylum’s Luminar has a Vignette filter which offers both modes – pre-crop and post-crop vignette.

Presets
Presets are specific adjustment settings, or groups of settings, saved for re-use. Presets are used widely by image-editing and effects software to apply a sophisticated set of adjustments to a photo with a single click.
Read more: Film simulation explained | LUTs explained

Print sizes
Print papers come in a range of sizes. Not only that, their proportions, or ‘aspect ratios’, are different too. Snapshots are usually printed on 6” x 4” paper, and traditional darkroom print sizes include 7” x 5” and 10” x 8” sizes still used today. You can naturally get larger sizes still, and these will depend on your photo lab.
Read more: Aspect ratios explained

Printer calibration
Very often, a printed image will not precisely match the tones and colors shown on the computer screen. Sometimes it’s the screen that’s at fault, so that’s when you need monitor calibration tools, but sometimes it’s the printer, especially if you are using non-standard or ‘art’ papers. Printer drivers typically contain profiles for the maker’s own papers, but if you use a third party paper you may need to download and install a bespoke printer profile – or make your own with printer profiling products.
Read more: Color management explained

Printer/paper profile
Printers do not necessarily reproduce colors accurately, especially if you use third-party inks or papers rather than the printer maker’s own. A printer profile is used as part of a color managed workflow to send ‘corrected’ colors to the printer so that the prints match the colors on your screen and those captured by the camera.
Read more: Color management explained

Profiles
‘Profiles’ are closely related to LUTS (lookup tables). They adjust the brightness and color values in an image, sometimes to correct a device’s colour rendition (like monitor profiles) but often to apply a creative effect or film simulation. Profiles are usually applied ahead of any other editing adjustments.
Read more: Film simulation explained | LUTs explained | Black and white photography basics

PureRAW (DxO)
DxO PureRAW is a software program that converts regular RAW files from cameras into special part-processed ‘Linear DNGs’ that still behave like regular RAW files in other programs but have DxO’s advanced lens corrections, noise reduction and RAW ‘demosaicing’ already applied.
Read more: PureRAW review | DxO software

Question 17

R

Accepted Answer

Radial blur
A blur effect created with a circular or elliptical mask which you can typically resize and move around the image. The center remains sharp but the degree of blur increases towards the edges.

Radial mask
A circular or elliptical mask shape with can be resized and repositioned, and with an adjustable ‘feather’ zone around it for blending in adjustments smoothly. Radial masks are typically used to lighten or enhance the center of the image or darken the edges for a highly controllable ‘vignette’ effect.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Ratings
Many photo cataloguing and editing programs support ratings, almost always displayed as star ratings from 1-5. They can be used for identifying and filtering out your best shots.

RAW file
Usually when you take a picture the camera will process the data captured by the sensor into an image file. More advanced cameras can save the image in its unprocessed state – a RAW file – so that you can do the processing yourself later on your computer.
Read more: RAW files explained | Film simulation explained | Non-destructive editing explained | Bits and bit depth explained

RAW processing
A RAW converter is software that processes RAW files from a camera and converts them into regular image files. Not all RAW converters are the same. The closest analogy is the different developers used to process film. Examples include Adobe Camera Raw, Capture One Pro and DxO PhotoLab.
Read more: RAW files explained

RAW+JPEG
Cameras with the ability to shoot RAW files will almost always offer a RAW+JPEG option too. Here, the camera shoots a single image but saves two versions – the RAW file and a JPEG processed and saved with the current camera settings. The JPEG is useful because you can share it with other people straight away and it also offers a useful benchmark when you’re processing the RAW file later.
Read more: RAW files explained

Red filter
A ‘contrast filter’ commonly used in black and white photography to make blue skies come out deeper and darker and make red or yellow toned objects much brighter. These days, its easier to recreate this effect digitally, or at least it offers more control.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Replace Color
An option in many photo editors for changing one color into another but leaving the rest unaltered.
Read more: HSL color editing explained

Resolution
A catch-all term that can mean many different things. The resolution of a sensor is how many megapixels it has, the resolution of a printer or a scanner is the number of dots per inch/mm it can resolve, the resolution of a screen is its display size in pixels and the resolution of a lens is a measurement of its resolving power using test equipment.
Read more: Video basics explained

Retouching
Image retouching can be as simple as removing a couple of sensor spots from a sky or cloning out a few scraps of rubbish in a landscape shot. It can also be a highly-valued professional skill in the fashion and advertising industry.
Read more: Retouching explained

RGB
RGB stands for red, green and blue, the three colour ‘channels’ that go to make up all the colours in a digital image. It comes in two varieties – sRGB is a ‘universal’ RGB that can be used and displayed by any device, whereas Adobe RGB is a more specialised alternative for pros.
Read more: Color management explained

Round-tripping
This is where you use a plug-in or external editor within another program to achieve a particular task. Your 'host' software sends the image to the other program where you do the necessary editing work and when you close the image the edited version is sent back to your host software. In other words, the image has done a round trip back to where it started.
Read more: Plug-ins and external editors explained

Question 18

S

Accepted Answer

S-shaped curve
This is a classic curve adjustment designed to improve midtone contrast. One control point is used to lower the curve in the shadows and another is used to raise it in the highlights. This steepens the curve, and hence the contrast, in the midtones, and looks like a flattened and forward-tilted letter ’S’.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Saturation
The intensity of a colour or a photo. The higher the saturation, the more intense the colour. You can increase the saturation of a photo, but at a certain point the stronger colours will start to ‘clip’ – objects lose any fine detail and become a solid block of colour.
Read more: HSL color editing explained

Screen mode
This is a layer blending mode that lightens the image below using brighter tones in the top layer. This is useful if you want to superimpose brighter parts of a picture over an image in the layer below.
Read more: Layers explained

Selections
You create selections to pick out an area of an image for adjustments, and they are typically shown by an animated dotted outline ('marching ants'). Selections are closely related to masks, except that selections are typically temporary, while masks are stored with the image.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Selective color
A special effect which converts the whole image into black and white except for one specific colour range. One the the most common examples is a black and white image with a bright red subject – the girl in the red coat in the film ’Schindler’s List’, for example.
Read more: HSL color editing explained

Sensei (Adobe)
Sensei is an Adobe artificial intelligence (AI) technology that analyses images to recognise objects within them and offer both more targeted image specific ‘intelligent’ adjustments, and improved image searches without the need to manually add keywords. Currently, Sensei is available when images can be sent to or stored on Adobe’s own servers.\"
Read more: Adobe software Local adjustments explained

Sensor size
Sensor size keeps coming up in any discussion about image quality. Megapixels are a factor too, but the size of the sensor is ultimately more important. Bigger sensors have bigger photosites which capture less noise and more dynamic range.
Read more: Aspect ratios explained

Sepia toning
A popular ‘vintage’ effect that gives black and white images a strong brown tone. It’s easy to recreate this digitally. Many cameras have ‘sepia’ picture styles, and many photo editors have sepia effects. Generally, though, these off-the-peg effects are crude and unappealing – yet sepia toning can in fact be very rich and subtle when applied manually.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Shadows
The darkest tones in a picture. A pretty vague term (like ‘highlights’) but usually taken to mean the darkest areas where you can still see some image detail. Digital cameras often retain more shadow detail than you can see initially, and this can be brought out later on a computer.\"
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained | Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Shadow recovery
Shadow recovery is a very useful technique for backlit photos or images shot in high contrast lighting. Digital cameras are not very tolerant of overexposure, so it’s often necessary to expose for the brightest parts of the scene and then enhance (recover) the shadows in post processing.
Read more: Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

Sharpener Pro
Software plug-in for sharpening images and part of the DxO Nik Collection. It comes in two parts – Sharpener Pro Raw Presharpening for enhancing images straight from the camera, and Sharpener Pro Output Sharpening for preparing images for printing on different devices.
Read more: Nik Collection review | Sharpener Pro review | DxO software

Sharpening
Sharpening is a software process that exaggerates the contrast around the edges of objects and makes detail look sharper. It’s applied in-camera, by RAW processing software and as part of regular editing processes.

Shift lens
A lens which can be adjusted relative to its mounting plate. You can use vertical 'shift' to correct converging verticals – it means you can keep the camera level and raise the lens to get the top of tall buildings into the lens. Shift lenses will typically offer a sideways movement too, so that you can correct horizontal convergence instead. Tilt-shift lenses incorporate a tilting mechanism too so that you can control the plane of focus and depth of field in a picture.
Read more: Perspective correction explained

Shutter angle
This is a video term for shutter speed, which relates the time the shutter is open to the number of frames per second you're shooting at. A shutter angle of 180 degrees is generally considered ideal, so that if you are filming at 30fps, the shutter speed should be 1/60sec. This goes back to the days when movie cameras had rotary shutters that rotated 360 degrees for each frame.
Read more: Video basics explained

Sidecar file
If you shoot RAW files rather than JPEGs and then use a tool like Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw to edit them, they will need to create a ‘sidecar’ file alongside the image to hold the editing data, since RAW images cannot be edited or modified.
Read more: Metadata explained | Non-destructive editing explained

Signal to noise ratio
Signal to noise is the technical term for the noise level in a digital image. The ‘signal’ is the image itself and the ‘noise’ is the random speckling effect you see in high ISO images. The higher the signal to noise ratio, the less visible noise will be in the image.
Read more: Noise and noise reduction explained

Silver Efex Pro
Software plug-in for creating authentic-looking black and white film looks, and part of the DxO Nik Collection. Silver Efex Pro can replicate the look of classic black and white materials and darkroom effects. It also offers ‘control points’ for localised dodging and burning.
Read more: Nik Collection review | Silver Efex Pro review | DxO software

Sky replacement
A popular photo enhancement technique that's been used for decades by photographers either in a darkroom or in software, and now made mainstream by programs like Skylum Luminar, which can use AI to identify and mask skies in outdoor shots and then blend in different sky images.
Read more: Skylum software

Sky Selection (Adobe)
An AI-powered tool in Adobe Lightroom which can automatically identify and mask skies in photos so that you can then make adjustments to the sky alone.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Skylum
The new name for the company previously known as MacPhun. Skylum publishes the Luminar photo-editing program and Aurora HDR application. Its software is Luminar Neo, which features many AI-driven effects tools.
Read more: Skylum software

Slow motion
Slow motion video is created by capturing video at one frame rate and then playing it back and a lower rate. To get smooth video footage it needs a frame rate of 25-30fps, so for a smooth 2x slow motion video, you would need to shoot it at 50-60fps, and for smooth 4x slow motion you’d need to capture at 100-120fps.
Read more: Video basics explained

Smart album or collection
An album or collection in a photo organising application that automatically brings together images that match the properties you choose. For example, you could have a smart album/collection containing pictures shot on a Sony A7 camera in the RAW format with the keyword ‘winter’.

Smart Object (Photoshop)
A Smart Object is a kind of layer in Photoshop that preserves the ‘edibility’ of filters and RAW processing carried out in Adobe Camera RAW.
Read more: Adobe software

Smart Preview (Lightroom)
With Lightroom‘s Smart Previews you can store smaller, lower-resolution versions of your photos within the Lightroom catalog while storing the full resolution versions on an external disk drive. Smart Previews are compressed DNG files and fully editable – any changes you make are automatically used for the full resolution photo when your drive is reconnected. Smart Previews make it practical to view and edit your image library on a laptop with a relatively small internal drive.
Read more: Cloud storage explained

SmugMug
An online photo sharing/portfolio website designed for photographers to display their work, create online portfolios and sell images. SmugMug now owns Flickr.
Read more: Cloud storage explained

Snapseed
A simple image-editor and effects tool originally published by Nik Software, but then by Google when it took that company over. Google has since discontinued the desktop version of Snapseed, but it still exists as a free app for Android and iOS smart devices.
Read more: Snapseed review

Snapshot (editing)
A Snapshot is a record of the current image state while you’re editing it. You can create a Snapshot in Photoshop or Lightroom when you reach a point that you think you might want to return to during editing. You can save a number of Snapshots to quickly compare different editing steps.

Soft focus
Soft focus effects are popular in portrait photography but they can also work well in landscapes and other kinds of imagery where you want to create a romantic, ethereal look.

Solarization
Solarisation is an old darkroom technique for partially reversing a print during the development process. This produces a picture that’s part positive and part negative. The result is a picture that can add a surreal look to any subject from a portrait to a landscape. The lighter parts of the scene reproduce naturally, but the darker parts are reversed, so that bright skies, for example, become dark and foreboding.

Split toning
A more complex type of toning where two colours are used not one – shadows are tinted with one tone and highlights with another. The results can be very effective, though it’s not always easy to find good-looking toning combinations and split toning doesn’t work with all images.
Read more: Toning and split toning explained

Spot removal
Cameras with interchangeable lenses do not have sealed interiors and the sensors can pick up spots of dust. These can be removed in software using spot removal tools – you dab on the dust spot and the software uses nearby pixels to cover it up. It’s like cloning but easier, because you can leave the software to ‘heal’ the spot automatically.
Read more: Retouching explained

sRGB
A standard colour space used widely by displays on smartphones, computers, tablets and other electronic devices. It’s reproduces a sufficiently wide range of colours to give realistic photographic images and is supported by almost all devices. As colour spaces go, it’s a safe and effective ‘lowest common denominator’.\"
Read more: Color management explained

Standalone software
Software that can run on its own without the need for 'host' software. Most photo editing tools are standalone software, but some are 'plug-ins' that can only be launched from programs like Lightroom or Photoshop.
Read more: Plug-ins and external editors explained

Star ratings
These are a standard way to add a rating to an image, out of a maximum of five stars. Some cameras let you add star ratings to images in playback mode, but it’s more usual to add star ratings in photo browsing and organizing software. You can use star ratings later to filter out your best shots.
Read more: Metadata explained

Straightening
It’s very easy to accidentally shoot with the camera slightly skewed so that horizons or vertical objects aren’t straight. Most photo editing apps have a simple Straighten tool to put this right.
Read more: Cropping and straightening explained

Structure
Structure is a relatively new concept in image editing. It enhances detail and outlines using the same basic principles as regular sharpening but across a wider radius. It’s not designed to enhance fine detail, but shapes and outlines seen from normal viewing distances. It’s like Lightroom’s Clarity adjustment, but on a finer scale.

Style Brush (Capture One)
A tool for brushing image adjustments and enhancements straight on to an image. You select the enhancement you want to apply and start brushing. You can change the size, softness, opacity and flow of the brush to build the effect more slowly and subtly.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Subject Selection (Lightroom)
An automatic AI-driven selection tool that uses Adobe’s Sensei object recognition to identify the main subject in your photo and mask it so that you can make adjustments or enhance its appearance.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Subscription software
A new way of paying for software where you pay a monthly or a yearly subscription rather than paying a single sum for a licence to use the software for as long as you like.
Read more: Subscriptions vs single fee software | Cloud storage explained

Question 19

T

Accepted Answer

Targeted adjustment
The Targeted Adjustment tool in Lightroom is used to drag on areas of an image to change the brightness, hue or saturation of specific tones. Some other programs have similar tools. It’s often easier to modify areas of a picture directly in this way than it is to use sliders.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Temperature (white balance)
Temperature, or ‘color temperature’, is one of the key settings in white balance adjustments. Different light sources have different color temperatures, from yellow/orange for incandescent indoor lighting to blue for open shade under blue skies or twilight.
Read more: White balance explained

Texture
Textures are a great way to add an ‘analog’ feel to a digital image. They can be relatively subtle, such as adding a ‘paper’ texture that simulates the fine pattern or fibres of art paper, or more dramatic, simulating the look of an old photographic ‘wet plate’ or unusual printing materials like tin or wood. Textures can also replicate the appearance of a scratched, stained or faded print.
Read more: Film simulation explained

TIFF
An image file format that uses ‘lossless’ compression but produces much larger files than JPEGs. It’s sometimes offered as a file format on more advanced cameras but it’s more useful later on as an image file format for image editing and manipulation on a computer.

Tilt shift
Tilt shift lenses, or ‘perspective control’ lenses, have built-in lens movements which let you shift the lens up, down or sideways relative to the camera, or tilt it at an angle. The shift movement is good for correcting converging verticals in architectural shots, while the tilt movement has traditionally been used for depth of field control in studio photography.

Timelapse
A ‘timelapse’ is a kind of speeded-up movie that can be made, literally, by speeding up a movie recording, or combining a series of still image in a movie editor.
Read more: Video basics explained

Tint (white balance)
A secondary white balance adjustment used alongside colour temperature for more complex light sources like fluorescent lighting. Colour temperature works across an amber-blue spectrum, while tint adds a green-magenta axis.
Read more: White balance explained

Tone curve
This is another term for the curve adjustments offered by most photo editing programs. You use tone curve adjustments to change contrast and brightness in the different tonal ranges within the picture.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Tone mapping
Part of the HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging process. When a series of exposures is merged, tone mapping is used to 'map' all the tones into a single editable image ahead of any further HDR effects you might want to add.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained

Toning
Toning is a popular technique in black and white photography where a chemical tint is added as the print is being developed. Sepia toning is popular for creating a vintage look, but selenium toning can add a richer, colder tone, while cyanotypes – strictly speaking, a different chemical process – have a much stronger blue tone.
Read more: Toning and split toning explained | Black and white photography basics

Topaz Labs
Software company which publishes the Topaz Studio plug-in effects collection where you can try basic versions of each tool and upgrade to the full versions of those you want individually.

Transform
Changing the perspective or scale of a photo or objects within the photo. Typically it can include straightening, scaling up and down, skewing or correcting converging verticals, for example.
Read more: Perspective correction explained

Type
The designer word for text, so that Photoshop, for example offers 'type' layers for adding text to your pictures.
Read more: Layers explained

Question 20

U

Accepted Answer

Updates (software)
Software publishes typically issue minor software updates free to existing users, but are always working on new major version updates, which will bring an additional update/upgrade fee for existing users who want the latest version.
Read more: Subscriptions vs single fee software

U-Point (DxO)
Another term used by software company DxO to describe its Control Point selection and adjustment tools. You place a point over the object or area you want to adjust and nearby areas with the same tone or color will automatically be masked so that you can make highly selective adjustments.
Read more: Local adjustments explained

Upright tool (Lightroom)
A set of perspective controls which can correct converging verticals, skewed horizons and other perspective problems. Lightroom offers a set of automated one-click buttons which often fix the problem immediately, plus a manual tool for correcting more complex or difficult perspective problems.
Read more: Perspective correction explained

Question 21

V

Accepted Answer

Variants (Capture One)
Used in Capture One Pro to create different versions of a photo without physically duplicating the image file on your hard disk. Capture One Pro’s adjustment are non-destructive, which means they consist of processing instructions rather than direct adjustments to image files. Lightroom has a similar feature called ‘Virtual Copies’.
Read more: Non-destructive editing explained

Vector
Where digital photos are made up of pixels, vector artwork is made up of mathematically-defined shapes. Vector are is scalable – you can make it any size you like and it won’t pixellate – and you can edit the shapes, their ‘strokes’ and ‘fills’ at any time. Vector shapes are used in illustration, but have limited value for digital photography, except when combining digital images with illustrations.
Read more: Layers explained

Velvia
Velvia is the name of a color slide (transparency) film made by Fujifilm. It’s famous for its dense, saturated colors and strong contrast. Fujifilm’s digital cameras have a Velvia Film Simulation (amongst others) to recreate the look of Velvia film digitally.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Versions (Lightroom)
‘Versions’ are a way to store multiple variations of a picture in Lightroom (not Lightroom Classic). You can swap to different versions of the picture at any time.
Read more: Non-destructive editing explained

Vibrance
A more sophisticated version of the regular saturation adjustment which targets the weakest colours rather than applying a constant saturation increase across the whole range. It’s less likely to produce solid, ‘clipped’ colours and can give a more natural, more controllable colour boost.
Read more: HSL color editing explained

Video resolution
Video resolution is measured in terms of the pixel dimensions of each frame, so HD video resolution is 1280 x 720 pixels, full HD is 1920 x 1080 pixels and 4K UHD is 3840 x 2160 pixels. Up to the full HD size, resolution is typically shorted to just the vertical figure, e.g. 720 or 1080, but beyond that it's shortened to a rough horizontal resolution figure, e.g. 4K, 6K, 8K.
Read more: Video basics explained | Aspect ratios explained

ViewPoint (DxO)
ViewPoint is a software plug-in/add-on from DxO software which is designed specifically for correcting both lens distortions and perspective distortion, such as converging verticals and keystoning effects.
Read more: ViewPoint review | DxO software | Perspective correction explained

Vignette
Vignette effects can be very useful, both as an aid to composition and as a way of adding a vintage, ‘analog’ look. A vignette can help focus attention on the main subject and tone down a distracting background. It can also act as a kind of framing device so that the picture feels properly enclosed and your eyes don’t drift out of the frame.
Read more: Film simulation explained

Vignetting
Vignetting is sometimes also called ‘corner shading’. It’s where a picture is darker at the edges than at the center. It’s a lens aberration which you tend to see mostly in older and cheaper lenses and it can be corrected in software. Sometimes vignetting is used as a creative tool to product a vintage look or to improve the picture’s composition.
Read more: Lens aberrations explained

Virtual copy
Because Lightroom uses non-destructive editing, its adjustments are stored as metadata (processing instructions) rather than new image files. This means it can create any number of Virtual Copies of the same image for trying out different effects, without having to duplicate the image itself on your hard disk.
Read more: Non-destructive editing explained

Viveza
Viveza is a software plug in which offers localised adjustments for photos via ‘control’ points. It’s part of the Nik Collection. You can use it to apply dodging and burning effects to enhance colour images in just the same way you would in black and white.
Read more: Nik Collection review | Viveza review | DxO software

Volume deformation/anamorphosis
A special type of distortion correction once built into DxO Optics Pro but now built into the separate DxO ViewPoint application. It fixes the distortion usually seen with wideangle lenses where objects near the edge of the frame appear disproportionately wide – it’s most obvious with human figures.
Read more: Perspective correction explained

Question 22

W

Accepted Answer

Warmth
Warmth is an image characteristic that people often respond to. Landscape photographers like to shoot in the ‘golden hour’ when the sun is low in the sky, and people generally prefer portrait shots to have a little warmth to the colour rendition.
Read more: White balance explained

Watermark
A way of marking images as your own property to prevent others from passing them off as their own or earning income from your work. Watermarks are visible on the image, which is a downside, but they do act as a visible deterrent and warning that you take image copyright ownership seriously.

Whites
The ‘whites’ are the brightest parts of an image, right at the point where the detail disappears into a solid white tone. Some photo editors offer a ‘whites’ slider which can be used to set this point, but the effect is much the same as using the white point sliders in levels or curves dialogs.
Read more: Shadows, midtones and highlights explained

White balance
White balance is a color adjustment made in software to correct any color shift in the ambient light to make it neutral – to ‘balance’ the light so that it’s a pure, neutral white.
Read more: White balance explained

White balance preset
If a camera is set to auto white balance then it will try to analyze and correct the colors in every scene, which can lead to unpredictable results. White balance presets lock the settings down to specific values for different conditions. You do need to select them manually according to your own judgement, but they do force the camera into a consistent color rendition.
Read more: White balance explained

White point
A tool used in software to pick an area of an image – usually the brightest – to render as a solid white. It’s a way of maximising the tonal range and contrast in an image.
Read more: Levels and curves explained

Working space
Different devices offer different ‘color spaces’ for rendering colors, but many higher-end photo editing applications offer a ‘working space’ that’s larger than any of them so that there is enough editing headroom for output to any device. The ‘working space’ is not intended for use with any device – it’s an interim color space solely for editing.
Read more: Color management explained

Question 23

X

Accepted Answer

XPM data
XMP files have the .xmp extension, and they contain image metadata. XMP stands for eXtensible Markup Platform, and it’s a standardized way to store image information like IPTC metadata and even editing adjustments. Adobe uses XMP metadata extensively, either embedding it in image files or creating .xmp ‘sidecar’ files alongside the photos they apply to.
Read more: Metadata explained

X-Trans sensor
A sensor layout unique to Fujifilm which replaces the usual bayer pattern of red, green and blue photosites with a more ‘random’ arrangement. Fujifilm says this eliminates the need for a low-pass filter to combat moiré (interference) effects, resulting in sharper fine detail.

Question 24

Y

Accepted Answer

Yellow filter
A filter often used in black and white photography for enhancing the appearance of landscapes. A yellow filter will darken blue skies to make clouds stand out more clearly as well as lightening vegetation and sandy beaches. It’s possible to replicate this effect in software.
Read more: Black and white photography basics

Question 25

Z

Accepted Answer

Zone System
A system developed by the great landscape photographer Ansel Adams for measuring the light levels throughout a scene and allocating them to ten brightness ‘zones’. The idea was to develop the film to a specific level of contrast that captured the full range of tones and make appropriate artistic interpretations with dodging and burning during the print-making process. It worked well with the very exposure tolerant sheet films of the day, where each negative was processed individually, but it’s mostly of academic interest today since digital sensors don’t offer this extended exposure latitude.
Read more: Dynamic range and exposure explained

Zoom blur
A type of blur that extends outwards from a central point with radial effect, as opposed to regular motion blur, which is typically in a single direction. Zoom blur can be created by quickly zooming a lens during the exposure, but it’s easier to achieve in software these days.

Question 26

1-9

Accepted Answer

1:1 ratio
The 1:1 aspect ratio means an image that has the same width and height, i.e. it’s square. So why not say ‘square’? It’s because many programs have crop tools that quote specific aspect ratios like 16:9, 3:2 or 4:3, so for the sake of technical consistency square images are referred to as 1:1.
Read more: Aspect ratios explained

3:2 ratio
Different camera types have different aspect ratios. Full frame sensors, APS-C sensors and the smaller 1-inch sensors in many high-end compact cameras have the same 3:2 ratio as old 35mm film negatives. This gives a pleasing semi-wide aspect ratio for horizontal images, though doesn’t work quite so well visually for vertical shots.
Read more: Aspect ratios explained

4:2:2 video
Video capture uses various forms of compression to keep the processing and file sizes manageable, and color subsampling is one of them. Essentially, the color information from adjacent pixels is combined – it’s a good space saving for relatively little loss in visual quality. 4:2:2 is relatively low compression/high quality. 4:4:4 is uncompressed, 4:2:0 is higher compression used commonly in cameras.
Read more: Video basics explained

4:3 ratio
This is an aspect ratio used by many medium format cameras, Micro Four Thirds cameras and compact cameras with small 1/2.3-inch sensors (like bridge cameras or point and shoot compacts). Visually, 4:3 images look slightly taller or less wide (however you want to look at it) with horizontal images, but the 4:3 ratio is quite pleasing for pictures taken vertically.
Read more: Aspect ratios explained

4K UHD
This is the 4K video format used by most cameras. It’s not strictly 4K as the horizontal resolution is 3,840 pixels not 4,000 or above, but it’s close enough for most purposes, especially as it preserves the same 16:9 ratio used by the Full HD and Standard HD formats and, indeed, most laptop and computer screens and TVs.
Read more: Video basics explained

4K video
The latest consumer video standard, with a horizontal resolution of 4,000 pixels or thereabouts. 4K video is appearing on an increasing number of cameras and even smartphones, and 4K TVs are gaining in popularity. Strictly speaking, the dimensions for 4K video are 4.096 x 2,160 pixels and the aspect ratio is slightly wider than the 16:9 standard for HD video. In fact, what most makers and users are referring to is UHD video at 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, which does have a true 16:9 aspect ratio.
Read more: Video basics explained

8-bit (24-bit) image
These are photos which use 8 bits of data for each of the red, green and blue colour channels. This is enough to give over 16 million colours – more than enough for photographic images. The JPEG photos taken by digital cameras are 8-bit images.”
Read more: Bits and bit depth explained | RAW files explained

10-bit video
Most cameras capture ‘8-bit’ video, in the same way they capture 8-bit JPEGs. Some can capture 10-bit video. This gives more processing leeway for color grading, special effects and other adjustments later in video editing software.
Read more: Video basics explained | Bits and bit depth explained

12-bit RAW
Many cameras can capture RAW files, but some only as 12-bit RAWs, versus the 14-bit RAW files captured by more advanced cameras. In practice, there’s little visual difference in the results – even 12-bit RAW files offer massively more processing flexibility than JPEGs. You can also get 12-bit RAW video, usually saved to an external recorder, which has all the same advantages of extra dynamic range and processing flexibility.
Read more: Bits and bit depth explained | RAW files explained

14-bit RAW
The ‘bit depth’ of RAW files is a factor in the picture quality they can produce, so this is a selling point for advanced digital cameras. Some cheaper models can only shoot 12-bit RAW files, but while this sounds like a small difference, the extra bit depth potentially offers 4x the image data so 14-bit RAW files are a worthwhile benefit, especially if you want to process photos heavily later.
Read more: Bits and bit depth explained | RAW files explained

16-bit image
These are photos with 16 bits of data for each of the red, green and blue colour channels. These aren’t created directly by the camera, but you can generate 16-bit images from RAW files and they withstand heavy image manipulation better than regular 8-bit images. The file sizes are much larger, though, which puts more pressure on your computer’s storage capacity and slows down file transfer speeds, and not all software can edit 16-bit images.
Read more: Bits and bit depth explained | RAW files explained

16:9 ratio
This is the aspect ratio of full HD and 4K UHD video and it’s been widely adopted as the aspect ratio for domestic TVs and computer monitors. The 16:9 ratio means that the picture is 16 units wide by 9 units high. These units can be anything from pixels to centimetres to inches, but the point is that the ratio between them always remains the same at 16 wide to 9 high.
Read more: Video basics explained | Bits and bit depth explained

32-bit image
32-bit image files are created by some HDR programs to allow for the extra tonal range in high dynamic range capture. 32-bit files are ‘working files’ – they are not used for final output.
Read more: Bits and bit depth explained

720p
This is the old HD (high definition) video standard. The ‘720’ refers to the vertical resolution of the HD frame (1280 x 720 pixels) and the ‘p’ refers to ‘progressive’ video where each frame is rendered in its entirety, as opposed to the old ‘interlacing’ system.
Read more: Video basics explained

1080p
This is shorthand for the full HD format, quoting its vertical resolution (full HD frames are 1920 x 1080 pixels). The ‘p’ indicates modern ‘progressive’ video, as opposed to the old ‘interlaced’ system.
Read more: Video basics explained