Digital Photography Terms

Do digital photography terms confuse you? Don't worry. You're not the only one. Here are some terms that will help increase your understanding of digital photography.

Ambient Light: Natural light

Anti-Blur: This is a mode on some cameras that uses a fast shutter speed to prevent an image from blurring. Keep in mind that when you use a fast shutter speed you get more noise in your image.

Archival: Term used to describe prints and discs that will last for a long time and not degrade over time. Archival paper is often used for scrapebooking.

Aperture: The opening inside the lens that controls the amount of light that gets into the camera. This is expressed in f-stops. The lower the f-stop the larger the aperture. The higher the f-stop the smaller the aperture. Aperture settings can be used to control the depth of field in your shot. A small aperture will give a greater depth of field. While a large aperture will create a shallow depth of field. This will cause the background of your shot to be out of focus while the subject is in focus.

Application: A computer program

Burning: Darkening a selected part of an image.

CCD: One of the digital photography terms used to refer to one of the two major types of sensors used in digital cameras.

CD-R: A compact disc that stores digital information.

CD-RW: Basically the same as a CD-R, but it can be burned and erased and re-burned as many times as you want.

CMOS: One of the digial photography terms used to refer to a less common type of sensor used in digital cameras.

CompactFlash™: A common type of memory card used in digital cameras.

Contrast: The comparison between the darkest part of the photo and the lightest part of the photo.

DPI: (Dots Per Inch) The number of dots a printer can display per inch.

Dodging: Lightening selected parts of a photo.

ISO: The camera's image sensor's sentivity to light.

JPEG: A method used by digital cameras to store images. It stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. This is the group that came up with the technique. JPEG is a method for compressing the image and is commonly used for images on the web or that are sent through email. The compression used does distract from some of the images quality.

LCD: (Liquid Crystal Display) It's the screen on the back of your camera that you can see the images on.

Macro Photography: Pictures of small images.

Megapixel: Equal to one million pixels.

Memory Card: This is one of the digital photography terms used to refer to a device used to store information. They are used in digital cameras to store photographs.

Noise: A degradation of the image. This can result naturally from the build-up of electric signals or can occur from having a very fast shutter speed. It gives the image a grainy look.

Panning: A photographic technique used to show motion. The camera follows the object moving. This makes the moving object appear clear in the shot and the surrounding objects appear blurred.

Pixel: The smallest part of the picture. When you look at a computer screen the image is made up of many different dots all put together to make an image. Those individual dots are pixels.

PPI: (Pixels Per Inch) The number of pixels displayed per inch. This is one of the digital photography terms used to discribe image resolution.

Resolution: This corresponds to the number of pixels in an image. A higher resolution image is a better quality image.

White Balance: A setting in your camera used to make up for the different colored casts certain types of light can give to an image.