Glossary

Alpenglow: A lighting phenomenon that occurs shortly after the sun has set below the horizon when objects turn pink or reddish.

Ambient light: The available, or existing, light that naturally surrounds a scene.

Aperture: The size of the opening in the iris of a lens. Apertures are designated by f-numbers. The smaller the f-number, the larger the aperture and the more light that hits the sensor.

Blending mode: Determines how two layers in Photoshop will combine.

Bracket: To shoot more than one exposure at different exposure settings.

Channel: In Photoshop, a channel is a grayscale representation of information, such as one color component of an image.

Chiaroscuro: Moody lighting that shows contrasts between shadows and brightness.

CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black; the four-color color model used for most offset printing.

Color opponent: A color channel that includes information both about a color and its opposite color.

Color space: A color space—sometimes called a color model—is the mechanism used to display the colors we see in the world in print or on a monitor. CMYK, LAB, and RGB are examples of color spaces.

Composite: Multiple images that are combined to create a new composition.

Depth-of-field: The field in front of and behind a subject that is in focus.

Diffraction: Bending of light rays; unwanted diffraction can cause loss of optical sharpness at small apertures.

Digital Asset Management (DAM): The process of storing, archiving, retrieving, and making sure ...

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