Definition

A software plug in that’s part of the DxO Nik collection. Color Efex Pro offers a huge variety of preset image effects you can browse through and apply to your photos with a single click, but you can also adjust the filters manually and even stack them to create custom ‘recipes’. Color Efex Pro also offers localized adjustments via ‘control points’.

A layer blend mode found in most programs that support image layers. Using this mode produces an ultra-high contrast composite image based on the layer it’s applied to and the layer(s) underneath.

Where you store or share images online as well as or instead of storing them on your computer. Cloud storage offers the advantage that your images are accessible everywhere as long as you have an Internet connection, though displaying and downloading images is of course slower than opening them on a hard drive, and uploading images in the first place is slower still. Examples include Apple iCloud, Dropbox and Google Drive.

Using a special clone stamp tool to copy pixels from a nearby area of an image to cover up an unwanted object or blemish. Cloning is something of an art, and some programs now offer simpler ‘content aware’ object removal.

For photographers, ‘clipping’ is where the image histogram is cut off abruptly at one or both edges. It means that some image detail is completely lost in solid black shadows (shadow clipping) or completely white highlights (highlight clipping).

‘Clarity’ is a localized contrast adjustment much coarser than regular sharpening, which throws larger objects into sharp relief and can add some much needed definition and ‘bite’ to low-contrast scenes.

This is temporary storage space used by software so that files you need often can be accessed more quickly. It’s typically used for image thumbnails and previews in programs like Adobe Bridge and Lightroom. Sometimes cache files cause problems and must be purged or deleted, sometimes the storage allocation for the cache needs to be made larger in the application preferences to improve performance. Caches and cache files are generally expendable, but they are there for a reason and to speed up performance.

Software that can ‘browse’ through the folders on your hard disk and show you any photos inside them as thumbnail images. This is the simplest form of photo organization tool and works perfectly well for many photographers, even though it lacks flexibility. Adobe Bridge is a file browser, for example, while Alien Skin Exposure and ON1 Photo RAW are examples of photo-editing programs that have browsers built in.

A tool in Lightroom that fills in the blank wedges at the edge of a panoramic image stitched together from overlapping frames. Normally, you’d have to crop these off and lose parts of the picture, but the Boundary Warp tool ‘pushes’ parts of the picture out to the edges so that you don’t lose anything.

Blend modes are used to control the way different layers in an image interact, and they apply not just to other image layers but also non-destructive adjustment layers.

Applying the same image adjustments to a whole batch of photos. For example, you might choose a black and white conversion style and apply it to all the photos from a particular shooting session. Batch processing can save a lot of time, but only if all the images will benefit from the same settings.

It’s extremely important to keep backups of your images, the changes you’ve made to them and your image organization system. There are backup tools for backing up your entire computer system, selected folders and sub folders, and backup tools built into image cataloging programs like Lightroom.

The professional term for image cataloging, and often used in photographic or design studios managing large numbers of images on a commercial basis. They may include not just photos but illustrations, logos and other graphics, hence ‘assets’ rather than photos.

Machine-based learning which interprets the contents of the image in a sophisticated way to produce better enhancements or better object and scene recognition. Skylum’s Accent – AI Filter in Luminar uses artificial intelligence to optimize photos automatically, while Google Photos uses artificial intelligence to identify and search through your pictures.

For a long time Adobe Photoshop has been the only real professional level image-editing program, but software company Serif has launched a professional photo editing program which competes directly with Photoshop at a much lower price – and for a single payment rather than the software subscription system introduced by Adobe. Affinity Photo has been built from the ground up for speed and performance and compatibility with the Photoshop PSD file format.

Software that works alongside Adobe Photoshop to open and process RAW files before they open in Photoshop itself. Adobe Camera Raw’s tools are also built into Adobe Lightroom. Most people use Adobe Camera Raw to process their RAW files simply because they’re using Photoshop or Lightroom, but other RAW converters are available.

The folder and file browser used across Adobe’s Creative Cloud applications, not just Photoshop. For many photographers, its a simpler and more predictable image organizing tool than Lightroom.

A tool used to ‘paint’ local adjustments on to an image manually, and one of the key adjustment tools in Lightroom, for example. You may need to choose the adjustments you want to make, e.g. exposure, saturation, clarity and so on before you start painting although non-destructive photo editors let you make changes to these settings afterwards too. You can change the size, softness and opacity of the Adjustment Brush.

A system developed by the great landscape photographer Ansel Adams for measuring the light levels throughout a scene and allocating them to ten brightness ‘zones’. The idea was to develop the film to a specific level of contrast that captured the full range of tones and make appropriate artistic interpretations with dodging and burning during the print-making process. It worked well with the very exposure tolerant sheet films of the day, where each negative was processed individually, but it’s mostly of academic interest today since digital sensors don’t offer this extended exposure latitude.

Highly complex photo-editors offer so many tools that the interface can quickly become cluttered and confusing. To get round this, most offer the ability to produce a custom workspace containing only the tools you use most often.

An increasingly common feature on digital cameras at all levels. The camera sets up a Wi-Fi hotspot which you can then connect to with a smartphone or tablet. The camera maker supplies an app which you can use for transferring photos to the device and for controlling the camera remotely.

Watt-seconds is  the usual measurement for the power output of professional flash systems. 1 watt-second is equivalent to the power of 1 watt for a period of 1 second. It’s used because it’s a measure of raw power output independent of any lighting modifiers, angle of coverage or reflective surfaces.

A 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.

A non-technical way of describing the colour temperature of the light in a scene. Pictures taken with a low sun have ‘warmth’ because the light takes on a golden colour. Many photographs – landscapes, for example – can be enhanced with a little additional ‘warmth’.

Viveza is a software plug in which offers localised adjustments for photos via ‘control’ points. It’s part of the Nik Collection. You can use it to apply dodging and burning effects to enhance colour images in just the same way you would in black and white.

Because Lightroom uses non-destructive editing, its adjustments are stored as metadata (processing instructions) rather than new image files. This means it can create any number of Virtual Copies of the same image for trying out different effects, without having to duplicate the image itself on your hard disk.

An effect where the edges of the picture are darker than the centre. It was common with old lenses and it’s become associated with a vintage look. It’s considered a lens aberration these days, though photographers often like to add a vignette effect deliberately.

Software that corrects distortion using lens correction profiles, fixes volume deformation created by wideangle lenses and offers perspective correction tools for fixing converging verticals and more. Works as a standalone app or as a plug-in and also integrates with DxO Optics Pro.

A more sophisticated version of the regular saturation adjustment which targets the weakest colours rather than applying a constant saturation increase across the whole range. It’s less likely to produce solid, ‘clipped’ colours and can give a more natural, more controllable colour boost.

Used in Capture One Pro to create different versions of a photo without physically duplicating the image file on your hard disk. Capture One Pro’s adjustment are non-destructive, which means they consist of processing instructions rather than direct adjustments to image files. Lightroom has a similar feature called ‘Virtual Copies’.

A set of perspective controls which can correct converging verticals, skewed horizons and other perspective problems. Lightroom offers a set of automated one-click buttons which often fix the problem immediately, plus a manual tool for correcting more complex or difficult perspective problems.

Where a picture comes out darker than you expected because of the way the camera has adjusted the exposure, or where you deliberately make the photo come out darker for dramatic effect.

An old-fashioned form of continuous lighting once used extensively in studio and portrait photography but now superseded by more powerful and energy-efficient flash systems.

Travel tripods are designed for compactness and light weight so that they can more easily be strapped to bags or even carried inside them. They have a specific design feature, whereby the legs fold upwards around the centre column and the tripod head to minimise their size when folded.

Changing the perspective or scale of a photo or objects within the photo. Typically it can include straightening, scaling up and down, skewing or correcting converging verticals, for example.

A deliberately low-quality image effect that mimics the retro look produced by cheap old film cameras. Pictures have added contrast and colour saturation and strong vignetting at the edges of the frame. Some toy camera effects add a colour shift to simulate old and out of date film.

A technique used by HDR software to ‘map’ the extremely wide brightness range of a high dynamic range image into an editable form where the extremes of shadow and highlight detail are preserved. It’s usually the first and sometimes the only step in making an HDR image.

Adding a coloured tone to black and white pictures to add depth or atmosphere. The most famous is sepia toning, so often used for Victorian portraits. These days most people simulate toning effects digitally using colour controls and effects filters.

A specialised type of lens which can be tilted relative to the camera body. This changes the plane of sharp focus and can be used to extend or contract the available depth of field. It can also be simulated digitally using tools which leave a central strip of the photo in sharp focus but progressively blur the rest of the image towards the edges.

A three way tripod head has separate adjustments for horizontal movement (pan), fore and aft movement (tilt) and camera orientation (vertical or horizontal). This makes a three way head heavier and more bulky than a ball head, but it’s easier to make precise, fine adjustments in one direction only.

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.

A detail enhancing adjustment that emphasises object outlines by adjusting local contrast over a larger radius than regular sharpening tools. It makes finer details more prominent.

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.

Software that you launch directly and which doesn’t need any other program to run – as opposed to plug-ins, which need a ‘host’ application.

A way of keeping related images together in an image cataloguing program – such as different exposures in a bracketed series, the individual frames of a panoramic image, the shots from a continuous shooting sequence or edited and original versions of a photo. Adobe Bridge can stack images, as can Lightroom. Apple’s now-discontinued Aperture offered the most consistent and versatile stacking system.

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.

This is a tool for simply brushing away blemishes, sensor spots or unwanted objects in your pictures. You can ‘dab’ once with the brush for spots or paint over irregular objects. It uses pixels from surrounding areas to fill in the gap, and it works really well with small objects against larger backgrounds. It’s less effective at larger repairs, but worth and try nonetheless.

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.

Tripods usually come with rubber feet on their legs, but these may not give much grip or purchase if you’re using them outdoors on soft or uneven surfaces – this is where it’s often better to have a metal spike instead. On some tripods, the rubber feet will screw back to expose a spike. On others, you may be able to unscrew the rubber feet and screw on spikes instead.

The names used by Nikon and Canon respectively for their camera flash units, both built-in pop-up flash and external flashguns. There’s nothing intrinsically different about these compared to regular flashguns – it’s just a different choice of name.

A technique for reversing the tones in the brightest parts of the picture to produce a ‘semi-negative’ photo. It can create a very dramatic and surreal effect. It used to be done in the darkroom by re-exposing a print to light part-way through development, but can now be done much more controllably using software.

A softbox fits around the head of a flash to provide a larger and more diffuse rectangular light source. It’s very popular amongst professional photographers for product shots, where it produces even lighting and nice reflections off glossy surfaces, and for portrait photographers who want to achieve a softer, more flattering effect.

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.

An online photo sharing/portfolio website designed for photographers to display their work, create online portfolios and sell images.

With Lightroom’s Smart Previews you can store smaller, lower-resolution versions of your photos within the Lightroom catalog while storing the full resolution versions on an external disk drive. Smart Previews are compressed DNG files and fully editable – any changes you make are automatically used for the full resolution photo when your drive is reconnected. Smart Previews make it practical to view and edit your image library on a laptop with a relatively small internal drive.

A feature in DxO Optics Pro that attempts to optimise exposure levels and highlight detail retention in RAW files. You can adjust the strength of the effect and apply exposure compensation at the same time, to get the ideal result.

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’.