Digital cameras typically offer a range of ‘picture styles’ to suit different subjects or different tastes in color rendition. Canon calls these Picture Styles, Nikon calls them Picture Controls and other camera makers have their own names.
Traditional photo editing is ‘destructive’. That means every adjustment you make permanently changes the pixels in the photo and there’s no way back unless you’ve saved a copy of the original and you’re willing to start again. ‘Non-destructive’ editing is fully reversible. You can go back and undo or redo all of your editing work at any point in the future. Naturally, there’s a catch
Aberrations, or optical imperfections, exist because no lens is optically perfect. Almost all lenses show aberrations from the ‘perfect’ image.
The whole topic of color management can get pretty dry and technical, but stick with it because there’s information here that’s useful and puts lots of other things in context.
The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of its width to its height. The larger the ratio, the ‘wider’ the image; the smaller the ratio, the ‘squarer’ the image.
Bit depth is an important concept in digital imaging if you want the best possible image quality and if you intend to manipulate images heavily.
Levels and curves can both be used to adjust the contrast in photos, but how are they different, which should you use and is one better than the other?
Composition in photography can become very dry and technical when it’s reduced to a science. Here’s a way to see and work with shapes that’s simpler and more visual.
How do you stop your photos being cropped awkwardly on Instagram? It’s not about pixel sizes, it’s about aspect ratios, and here’s what you need to know.
Polarising filters are often used to darken blue skies. You can do this digitally instead – though polarisers do more besides that you cannot do digitally.