Welcome to the Life after Photoshop photo-editing A-Z. It’s very easy to use – just click a heading to expand a definition of that term. There are links to specific programs and many of the entries link to a tag which will show related articles. I hope you find it useful.
British vs American spellings
This A-Z uses British rather than American spellings, e.g. ‘colour’ rather than ‘color’. Apologies if this is confusing. This link may prove helpful.
W
- WarmthWarmth 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.
- WatermarkA 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.
- White balanceWhite 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.
- White balance presetsIf 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.
- Working spaceDifferent 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.