Ambient light (existing light) The available light already existing in an indoor or outdoor setting which is not caused by any illumination created by the photographer.
Artificial light The lighting set up specially for taking the photo, usually created by the photographer. Such as studio light or flash light on the camera.
Backlit Subject being lit up by light that is coming from the back of the subject.
Cold tone Photos showing a color of bluish or purple color.
Color cast A dominant tint or color on a photo.
Color temperature The measurement of the color of light in terms of K units ( Kelvin). Daylight are white and is around 5600K, tungsten light is orange and is around 3600K.
Digital noise The showing of noticeable dot-like colored pixels in a digital photo. Usually appears when photo was underexposured, taken with high ISO setting or long exposure.
Flare (Lens flare) An non-image forming light scattered by the lens or reflected from the camera interior.
Flat/dull An undesirably low-contrast image, same as dull. It means the photo is having a small difference between its highlights and shadows.
Grayscale A photo without any color except the tone of black and white. Usually refer to as black and white photo.
Highlight The brightest areas of a photo.
High contrast A photo having great differences between its highlights and shadows. Low contrast A photo is lack of enough (small) difference between its highlight and shadow areas. It can also be called as flat.
High key A photo is call high key if most of the image area is showing highlights with very little shadows. Such as a white cat on the snow.
ISO The sensitivity setting of a sensor (film) which stands for “International Organization for Standardization.” The larger the number, the higher the sensitivity of the sensor, the less light needed to form an image.
JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group - A digital image compression method which helps minimize the file size of a digital photo substantially according to the degree of compression selected.
Low key A photo is call low key if most of the image area is showing shadows (dark) with very little highlights. Such as a black cat walking on a black couch.
Midtone An area of an image which is gray and roughly midway between black and white. In color photography, mid-tone will be the medium reflective color such as red, deep blue, dark green, rich brown, light purple and similiar value colors.
Mix lighting A photo taking area being lit up by different sources of light that might cause multiple shadows and different colors on the subject.
Overexposed An expression used to indicate that the light sensitive material has been excessively exposed. The resulting image will be too bright or blown out.
Pixel & Megapixel Pixel means picture element. The smallest unit that combines to form a digital photo. A megapixel means a million pixels. One mega means one million.
Sensor: Digital film inside a digital camera that records the light. CCD Charge-coupled device. A common type of digital image sensor used by digital cameras. CMOS Complementary metal oxide semiconductor. Another type of digital image sensor.
Shadow The dark area of a scene or on a print. Areas below mid-tone.
Sidelit Subject being lit up by light that is coming from the side of the subject.
Underexposed Not enough light received by the sensor to form a full tonal value image. Final image tends to be dark.
Warm tone Photos showing a color of yellow, orange or red color.
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