Photography Vocabulary

Contrast - The difference between a light and dark area of a print.  Increasing contrast makes the white areas whiter and the dark areas darker.  More contrast will deepen the appearance of the print. High contrast implies range from black to white; low contrast, a small range of values from black to white.

Bright - A print that is lighter on the density side and may have a little higher contrast.

Blown Out - The print is too bright and/or contrasty.  There is little to no detail in Bright or white areas.

Washed Out - Contrast is low and colors are muted.

Dark - A print that is dark on the density side and may have a little lower contrast.

Flat - A term often used to indicate an image that's too low in contrast; a "flat" image. Some customers will use this term for lack of saturation, pop or depth- Please ask them to elaborate.  Very little detail in highlight or shadow areas. Same as Muddy.

Muddy - Lacking Contrast. The image appears to have a grey undertone. Same as Flat.

Overexposure - The result of recording too much light when taking a picture, which results in a light image.

Underexposure -The result of recording too little light when taking a picture, which results in a dark image.

Blocked Shadows - Term for lack of, or loss of, shadow detail in a photographic image, usually the result of underexposure or images captured by a lower resolution (and less dynamic) imaging sensor.

Saturation - Refers to the vibrancy or pop of colors in a print.  Especially Reds, Oranges and yellows. Saturation adjustments affect all colors, we can not adjust the saturation of a single color.

Fuzzy - A print that is under sharpened and or lacking in contrast and saturation.

Blotchy - Highlights on cheeks, nose, and forehead are uneven due to over-saturation or high contrast.

Pop/Punch - To add saturation and contrast to boost the tonality of the print.  Many of our consumer-based clients are looking for Pop in their prints.

Backlighting - Lighting that illuminates the subject from a position opposite the position of the camera. It is difficult to brighten the subject without losing the background entirely.

Vignetting -  Darkening of the edges of a photographic image due to the inability of a lens to distribute light evenly to the corners of the frame. This is also an artistic decision that some photographers add to their images in an attempt to add focus on a particular subject in the photograph.

Sepia - A filter applied to images to invoke a “Vintage” feel. Consisting of yellow or red tones on a monochromatic image.

Bleed - This term is mainly used for Press and canvas.  This is an area of space that is not the print that is meant to accommodate for a fold or wrapped edge of the print.

Banding - An uneven tone in a print.  Mainly in Sky and Black and white images.  Instead of a smooth sky transition, there is a band of colors or break in the print. This issue is usually remedied by reducing the sharpness in DP2 or Photoshop.

CMYK Color (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) - CMYK is the color space used for commercial offset printing. CMYK is also a common working color space for inkjet, laser, dye-sublimation, and wax thermal printers. All images should be submitted as sRGB to Nations Photo Lab.

sRGB - Standard Red Green, Blue. sRGB is the default color space for almost all devices. We print using sRGB.

Color Calibration - A process by which the image source (digital camera or scanner), monitor and output (printer) are calibrated to use the same or similar color standard, i.e., Adobe RGB, sRGB, etc). This ensures that the image viewed on the monitor has the same range of colors as the image that is printed, and any adjustments made to the color of the image in the computer are accurately represented when the image is printed.

ICC Profile (International Color Consortium profile) - A universally recognized color-management standard for specifying the color attributes of digital imaging devices (scanners, digital cameras, monitors and printers) in order to maintain accurate color consistency of an image from the point of capture through the output stage.