Photography Related Glossary & Reference (A)

1-Bit Image - A digital image which is monochrome, either black or white pixels. Only 1 bit of data is required for each pixel.

8-Bit Image - A digital image that utilizes 8 bits of data for each pixel. The image may contain up to 256 colors.

24-Bit Image - A digital image that utilizes 24 bits of data for each pixel. The image may contain up to 16.5 million colors.

32-Bit Image - A digital image that utilizes 24 Bits of data for each pixel. The additional 8 bits are used to save the level of opaqueness in each pixel. The image may contain up to 16.5 million colors with 256 levels of transparency.

35mm Equivalency - This is what a digital lens equivalent would be as it pertains to a 35mm film SLR camera. The standard used for looking at the field of view and magnification of a lens. Lenses over 50mm are called telephoto, and lenses below the 50mm mark are termed fisheye and wide angle.

Aberrations - Irregularities in glass that lead to the incorrect focusing of light, resulting in abnormalities in photography.

Acquire Plug-in - A connection that allows for communication between a digital camera and image editing software.

Action-Safe Area - The area that will be displayed on most screens. To avoid cropping of essential parts of photographs, all important action should be kept in this safe area.

Active Auto Focus - Usually an infrared signal that helps determine the correct focusing distance. This mechanism is found on most cameras today.

Additive - Color mixing results in a brightening effect. The more colors introduced the more light is added making them brighter. Red, Green and Blue can be mixed together to create any other color.

Adjustment Layers - Enables application of image corrections as individual layers. An effect can be adjusted or removed at will, without modifying the original image.

Aliasing - Distortions that may appear in diagonal lines of an image.

Alpha Channel - Information about pixels stored in images. This concept enables the storing of transparency information in images.

Analog - Light is recorded by converting the analog waves by which it travels in the real world, by converting these waves into numbers.

Analog Format Photography - Photography that doesn't uses an analog sensor to catch an image, such as photographic film.

Aperture - A hole through which light is introduced. It is used to control how much light is allowed in to the lens.

Aperture Priority - Mode found on cameras, that allows controlling the camera’s aperture and defining the shutter speed. This helps achieve proper exposure.

APS - Advanced Photography System. Film format used for still photography.

Artifacts - Distortions that often occur due to compressing or resizing an image.

ASA - Measure of film speed.

Aspect Ratio - The ratio of length to width. Most common image ratio is 4:3, although one may run into 3:2 quite often also.

Aspherical - A lens with a non circular, non spherical shaped surface. This is useful for correction of certain distortions in an image.

Auto-Bracketing - Advanced feature found on some cameras allowing for taking a series of shots with slightly different settings.

Auto Focus Assist Lamp - Lamp that assists in achieving focus where other cameras would fail. This is done by illuminating the object.

Automatic Exposure - Lamp that assists in achieving focus where other cameras would fail. This is done by illuminating the object.

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