This is a list of definitions of photo editing terms, with links to articles that include them.
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- Nik Collection (DxO) (12)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.
- Noise reduction (15)Noise is the 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’ (colored) noise and ‘luminance’ noise (general ‘grittiness’) the same color as the background. 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.
- Non-destructive editing (13)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.