Photo-editing A-Z

S

• Saturation (1)The intensity of a color or a photo. The higher the saturation, the more intense the color. You can increase the saturation of a photo, but at a certain point the stronger colors will start to ‘clip’ – objects lose any fine detail and become a solid block of color.
• Selection (1)A way of separating out a specific part of a picture for adjustments. Selections can be made using a variety of tools such as a rectangular or circular marquee, a magic wand or a selection brush. When the selection is made, it has an animated, dashed outline sometimes called ‘marching ants’.
• Selection brush (2)This is a basic kind of masking tools that selects areas of the image as you brush over them. You'll find equivalent tools in most photo editors. In Photoshop, the Selection Brush is a little like the Magic Wand too, finding he boundaries of the areas you brush over.
• Selective color (1)A special effect which converts the whole image into black and white except for one specific color 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.
• Sensei (Adobe) (3)Sensei is the name Adobe gives to its suite of AI technologies, which are used for everything from AI masking tools to automatic subject recognition and keyword generation. It's more of a corporate brand name than a specific type of technology.
• Sepia toning (1)An old black and white darkroom technique that turns regular black and white prints a vintage brown. It also adds depth and richness to monochrome images. These days it’s an effect that’s easy to create digitally.
• Session (Capture One) (2)Capture One is a professional image capture, organising and editing application. It started out as a tethered shooting tool for studio photographers, capturing each shoot as a ‘session’ where photographers could quickly sort through images, marking some as ‘picks’ and rejecting others. Capture One now offers Lightroom-style image catalogs but still offers its Sessions mode for photographers who prefer to work that way.
• Shadow recovery (7)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.
• Sharpener Pro (Nik Collection) (2)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.
• Sharpening (8)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.
• Sidecar file (1)A small data file stored alongside images by some photo-editing applications. The sidecar file contains processing data not embedded in the file itself, which is common practice for RAW files (which can't be modified). Sidecar files may also contain keywords and other metadata.
• Signal to noise ratio (1)The 'signal' is the detail in the scene that you want to capture, while the 'noise' is the background electrical interference in the camera's capture hardware. At higher ISO settings, the image signal is weaker and has to be amplified, and this means the background noise is amplified too – so the signal to noise ratio is lower, or worse.
• Silver Efex Pro (19)Silver Efex Pro is a plug-in for recreating black and white and darkroom effects. It's part of the DxO Nik Collection and not sold separately. It can also be used a standalone program or as an external editor by programs like Capture One.
• Sky mask (Lightroom) (1)This is one of the AI masking tools in Adobe Lightroom. It can automatically detect and select any sky areas in a photo so that you can enhance them separately to the rest of the image. Other programs can do similar things, such as ON1 Photo RAW and Skylum Luminar with their AI sky replacement tools.
• Sky replacement (2)A new landscape enhancement technique first introduced in Luminar Skylum and now offered by a number of different photo editors. It uses AI to identify and mask the existing sky in an image and then offers a series of alternative 'replacement' skies in various styles. The masking and sky replacement is usually highly effective, though does vary according to the subject and the software.
• Smart album/collection (5)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’.
• Snapshot (history) (1)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 (5)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.
• Split toning (6)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.
• Spot (sensor) (2)The sensors in interchangeable lens cameras are prone to picking up specks ion dust which appear as small black spots in your images. Sensors have anti-static coatings and sensor cleaning mechanisms designed to repel and shake off dust particles but they often persist despite this. They can be removed with manual sensor cleaning or by using dust removal tools in software. 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.
• sRGB (1)A standard color space used widely by displays on smartphones, computers, tablets and other electronic devices. It’s reproduces a sufficiently wide range of colors to give realistic photographic images and is supported by almost all devices. As color spaces go, it’s a safe and effective ‘lowest common denominator’.
• Straighten (2)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.
• Structure (3)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) (1)
• Subject recognition (4)A new branch of AI-powered technology in both cameras and software. In software, subject recognition is used to work out how to optimise images for different photographic genres and also to identify and mask specific areas for adjustment such as skies, subjects and other object types.
• Subject selection (Lightroom) (1)Another AI subject masking tool in Adobe Lightroom. This one attempts to identify the main subject in a photo and is often uncannily successful. Other programs have similar tools – Capture One can also identify and mask subjects automatically.
• Subscription software (5)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.
• Super Resolution (Adobe) (1)A number of photo editing programs now offer image upscaling, and this is Adobe's version. It uses AI to identify and reproduce textures and details on a larger scale, going beyond traditional resampling techniques to produce much more detailed and convincing enlargements.