CTE BASIC DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY STUDY GUIDE VOCABULARY Histogram a graph of all tones in an image Image/adjust (hue/saturation, brightness/contrast) hue: color name (like green), saturation: how opaque (rich with color) an object is, brightness: how light or dark a photo is, contrast: how dark are the darks and how light are the lights (high contrast darks are very dark and lights are very light) Edit/transform (scale, rotate, skew, flip, distort, warp) scale: size, rotate: arbitrary by using the ruler tool to define where the photo should be straightened to, skew: allows you to move each of the four corners of a selected rectangular area in directions other than up or down or left or right (at angles), flip: allows you to flip horizontally or vertically, distort: change where the four corners of an image are (like one point perspective on the text assignment), warp: adjust many points of an object to change its shape Shadow/highlight correction correcting the exposure in shadows or highlights Clipping mask apply a photo over a large shape or object that you selected, copied and pasted onto its own layer Text tool typing words and letters Dodge tool used to lighten select parts of a photo Cropping cropping, print sizing, straightening, perspective Selection tools (marquee, lasso, magic wand, adding and subtracting to of from the selection) Marquee: selects a square, rectangle, oval/ellipse or circle, lasso: selects an area using a continuous line around it, polygonal lasso: selects and area using a series of straight lines, magic wand: selects an area of like pixels based on common value Spot healing brush allows you to drag the mouse over scars or blemishes you want to remove. It takes the non- scarred area on both sides of where you dragged the mouse and merges them over the scar or blemish Color correction variations, (image/adjustments) color balance, (image/adjustments) hue/saturation and (image/adjustments) levels Levels a tool which can move and stretch the brightness levels of an image histogram Burn tool used to darken select parts of a photo Zoom lens gets closer to your subject by allowing you to choose one of many focal lengths (distances from your subject) Portrait lens creates a shallow depth of field every time (blurry background) to bring attention to the subject Wide angle lens includes more in the photo from left to right Telephoto lens - gets closer to your subject with one focal length (distance from your subject) Hot shoe the connection point or place on top of your camera where a strobe or external flash attach to the camera Monopod a one legged camera support used often by sports photographers for lens stability Mode selector or dial the dial on top of the camera that allows you to choose preset camera settings for specific kinds of photos, like a for aperture, p for program, manual, etc.
(full) auto mode the camera sets everything shutter speed and aperture or f/stop (M)anual you choose the aperture setting and the shutter speed; you have complete control over the camera settings (A)perture priority you choose the aperture setting (f- stop) and the camera chooses the shutter speed (S)hutter priority you choose the shutter speed and the camera chooses the aperture setting or f- stop setting. (P)rogram or programmable puts the camera in charge of the aperture (f/stop) and shutter speed, with all other camera settings available for the photographer to change Night Portrait (person with star) slow shutter speed with a flash Close up (flower) reds and greens are pumped up or elevated, camera selects a center focus, the flash may pop up if needed Sports (runner) high or fast shutter speeds, continuous focus while the shutter release button is held down halfway, tracking the subject in the center focus area Child (kid) boosts sharpness and saturation for clothing and background details, softens skin tones to make them look natural Landscape (mountain) broad depth of field, boosts color and saturation, contrast Portrait (woman with hat) softens and slightly blurs the background, softer skin tones Auto (flash off) (lightning bolt) auto flash is disabled so the flash won t go off, shutter speed and fstop are set automatically by the camera Red eye caused when the flash from your camera reflects the blood in the back of your eye back into the photo Leading lines like one point perspective. Example: receding railroad tracks Rule or law of thirds when a composition is covered with a rule of thirds grid (like a tic tac toe grid), the most important features in the composition will fall either on an intersection or on one of the lines of the tic tac toe grid. Used to stabilize or ground your composition. Megapixels (how many pixels?) 1 million Contact sheet (index print) a page or pages of thumbnails or smaller versions of your photos used to review and analyze your photos or archive a photo shoot 100% opacity completely saturated with color or pigment; the opposite of transparent or see- through Polygonal lasso tool selects an area using many straight lines to create a polygon or multi- sided shape Quick select tool selects an area with similar pixels Marquee tool selects an area using a square, rectangle, oval, ellipse or circle Clone stamp tool selects one area of a photo to clone or copy onto another area of a photo. Uses a target and the OPTION key to establish the targeted area to copy elsewhere (P)rogram or programmable mode fully automatic but you can change other settings, including white balance, ISO, or shutter speed and fstop or aperture if you choose to Continuous shoot (not a mode) when your camera takes many photos quickly. It sounds like a rapid fire gun and takes 2-10 photos per second, depending on the camera model. The shutter release button is held down continuously to do this. image transfer- downloading files to a computer
image management organizing files, photo selection and managing folders image editing straighten (use the ruler tool to draw a line and establish what should be parallel or perpendicular to the bottom of the composition; Image/adjustments, rotate/arbitrary), rotate (image/adjustments), limited crop (use the crop tool as usual), adjust tonal range (histogram and levels), contrast, and color correction (image/adjustments) TECHNIQUES OR CONCEPTS In addition to focusing the camera, pressing the shutter release button down halfway measures the light coming into the camera Digital cameras, compared to point and shoot cameras, are larger and more expensive Digital file formats: raw (A RAW image is the pure data directly saved from the camera's image sensor onto the card. With other image formats the camera processes the raw data and converts it to TIFF or JPEG, but with RAW mode the pure data is saved and can be edited later. RAW files take up 4 times as much memory as TIFF or JPEG files), tiff (A TIFF image is an uncompressed image showing the full detail of the image with no quality loss. TIFF images are very large and can take large amounts of storage space and can take a long time to save to the memory card. When a TIFF image is created in the camera, the camera takes the RAW image from the camera's sensor and converts it into the TIFF format using the settings in the camera's menus.), jpeg (JPEG is a standardized image- compression format. JPEG compression reduces the file size but has no effect on the number of pixels in the image (i.e., the resolution). JPEG was designed to compress the file size of photos and can handle as many colors as are in the picture. It is also lossy, meaning that some information is lost during compression, and the decompressed image is not a total match with the original. This means that a little bit of image detail quality is lost when saved as JPEG.) Common memory cards: compact flash (thumb drive or flash drive), secure digital (the SD card in your camera), sony memory stick (external device), compact disc (CD), internal storage (memory built into the camera) Black and white conversion (from a color photo to a black and white photo) hue/saturation, grayscale mode Undo/redo history pallet, step forward (command Z), step backward (command Z, option Command Z for multiple steps backward) Equipment used for downloading images: cables (cords connected to your camera), card readers, drives Techniques for improving images healing brushes (spot healing), patch tool (slight feathered edge when placing a patch of the photo elsewhere in the composition), clone stamp (option click, selects a clean area of a photo to cover blemishes and spots using a circle), and sharpening filter Layers pallet active layer (highlighted), layer order (the layer on top is the layer you see first, like turning a stack of glass panes, each with part of the composition on it, sideways and looking through it to see all the layers at one time), creating and deleting layers, opacity of a layer (adjusted on the layers palette) Viewfinder the part of a camera that you look through in order to compose your photo
Lens the external part of a camera that connects to the camera body. On a digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera, the lens is interchangeable (with zoom, telephoto, wide angle, macro, etc. lenses) Camera mode dial or setting the round knob on top of the camera body with all the little pictures showing you what camera mode you re using Shutter release button the button on the camera body that you press down halfway to measure light and focus a photo on auto focus and that you press down all the way to take a photo To quickly change your brush or tool size, use the shortcut by pressing the left (makes it smaller) or right (makes it bigger) bracket keys Digital SLR uses interchangeable lenses, especially when shooting sports On camera direct flash produces photo with harsh or bright lighting 72 pixels per inch (ppi) is best to use on the internet so photos load quickly The first digital cameras (in the 1960s) were big, expensive, poor quality 200-300 pixels per inch (ppi) is best to use when printing high quality (8x10) photographs When a new layer is created, it is created directly above the layer selected The biggest difference between film and digital cameras is the way they capture photos (on film with emulsion or digitally in memory or on SD Cards) In 1969 when the first digital cameras was invented, a man landed on the moon Elements of art and principles of design for the CTE test (simplicity, emphasis, rule of thirds, point of view (bird s eye, bug s eye), leading lines) simplicity: concentrate on a few basic elements, highlighting only those components that add to your composition, emphasis: when a light object or shape is next to a dark object or shape in order to bring the viewer s attention to the object or shape, rule or law of thirds: when a composition is covered with a rule of thirds grid (like a tic tac toe grid), the most important features in the composition will fall either on an intersection or on one of the lines of the tic tac toe grid. Used to stabilize or ground your composition, point of view: angle at which the photo was taken bird s eye is when the photo was taken above the subject, bug s eye is when the photo was taken below the subject, leading lines: like one point perspective. Example: receding railroad tracks