The ASA (American Standards Association) scale is an arbitrary rating of film speed; that is, the sensitivity of the film to light. If everything else is kept constant, the required exposure time is inversely proportional to the ASA rating.

An image sensor is a device that allows the camera to convert photons – that is, light – into electrical signals that can be interpreted by the device

Film grain is an optical effect that resembles a vast field of tiny particles in images developed from celluloid film. Film captures images via an emulsion of light-sensitive silver halide crystals, and these particles create a grainy visual texture.

Just like with sound, where noise refers to auditory disruptions, in photography, the term digital noise refers to visual distortion. Noise looks like tiny colored pixels or specks in your photograph

Auto mode works exactly the way it sounds: It gives your camera complete control over its various settings, including the ISO, the aperture, the shutter speed, the autofocus mode, and even the flash. Therefore, with your camera set to Auto mode, your camera does all the heavy lifting, while you simply point and shoot.

Shooting in manual mode gives you complete control over your camera's settings, including aperture, shutter speed, and ISO

In this camera mode, the photographer selects an aperture, and the camera chooses an appropriate shutter speed based on the available light.

What Is Bulb Mode on a Camera? Bulb mode simply allows the photographer to take a picture for as long as the shutter is depressed (that means pushed down, not sad…). You can use bulb mode by choosing manual mode or shutter priority, then start scrolling your selector wheel all the way to the end of the shutter speeds.

A tripod is a three-legged stand designed to support a camera. Cameras are mounted to a tripod, also referred to as “sticks,” for stability. Tripods utilize a fluid head. This also allows the camera to pan left and right or tilt up and down.

Camera shake is a term used to define the act of accidentally shaking a camera during shooting due to unsteady hands, which results in blurry images. This generally occurs more often if you're shooting on a low shutter speed or with a heavy lens, and can be avoided by using a tripod and cable release setup.

What is Bokeh? Bokeh is defined as “the effect of a soft out-of-focus background that you get when shooting a subject, using a fast lens, at the widest aperture, such as f/2.8 or wider.” Simply put, bokeh is the pleasing or aesthetic quality of out-of-focus blur in a photograph.

F-stop is the term used to denote aperture measurements on your camera. The aperture controls the amount of light that enters the camera lens and it's measured in f-stops.

Focal length is the distance from the center of the lens to the imaging point (focal plane) where the light for the image is collected. When a lens is described as a "50mm lens," it is referring to its focal length.

Long exposure photography is the name given to the technique in which the camera's shutter is left open during a somewhat lengthy period of time. The resulting image captures the trail of moving objects in front of the camera, while showing still elements razor sharp.

A light painting photographer opens a camera's shutter and keeps it open as they draw in the air with a light source. The finished product is an image of that light source's path: lines of light through darkness, creating a glowing image in the open lens during the long exposure photography time.

Burst mode, also called continuous shooting mode, sports mode, continuous mode, or burst shot, is a shooting mode in still cameras where several photos are captured in quick succession by either pressing the shutter button or holding it down.

Centre-weighted average metering concentrates the metering on the central part of the viewfinder but also takes the rest of the frame into consideration. This mode is favorable when you want to capture a well-balanced exposure, but biased towards whatever is right in the middle of the shot.

By definition 18% gray is the “mid-point between black and white on a logarithmic or exponential curve.” Think of it this way; it is simply halfway between black and white.

Highlights are the lightest elements in an image, whereas shadows are the darkest areas.

Workspace Switcher also displays the application windows and dialogs that are open in your workspaces. The panel application displays the workspaces in order from left to right across the rows of the panel application.

An aspect ratio is a proportional relationship between an image's width and height. Essentially, it describes an image's shape. Aspect ratios are written as a formula of width to height, like this: 3:2.

In digital photography, resolution is the level of detail contained in an image. More specifically, it refers to the number of pixels that exist within that image. The higher the resolution, and the richer the pixel count, the more detail and definition you will see.

SOOC is a photographer's abbreviation that stands for “Straight Out Of Camera.” It refers to images that are shown exactly as they were captured by the camera, with no post-processing applied whatsoever

What is golden hour? The last hour before sunset and the first hour after sunrise are coveted by professional photographers. Referred to as “the golden hour” or “magic hour,” these times provide the perfect light to capture stunning photos.

Advanced Photo System type-C (APS-C) is an image sensor format approximately equivalent in size to the Advanced Photo System film negative in its C ("Classic") format, of 25.1×16.7 mm, an aspect ratio of 3:2 and Ø 30.15 mm field diameter.

In photography and image processing, color balance is the global adjustment of the intensities of the colors (typically red, green, and blue primary colors). An important goal of this adjustment is to render specific colors – particularly neutral colors like white or grey – correctly.

What is the Patch Tool? The Patch tool is one of the most used and most helpful tools for photo editors. If you want to remove something distracting from the background of an image or even out an area that appears irregular, such as acne on a model's face, you're going to want to use this tool.

The Photoshop Clone Stamp tool copies one area of an image onto another area of an image. Photographers and designers often use the Clone Stamp tool to remove unwanted elements from a photograph.

The Spot Healing Brush tool magically removes unwanted spots, marks, or small objects in your image. Photoshop selects and replaces pixels from another part of your image to blend in seamlessly.

The Healing Brush and Patch tools allow you fix imperfections, like scratches, wrinkles, dust spots, etc., causing them to disappear into the surrounding image. They work very much like the cloning tools. You sample pixels in one are of an image, then paint over another area replacing it with the sampled pixels.

The Select and Mask Properties panel has multiple controls for refining all the edges of a selection. The Radius slider can often be useful to improve soft edges, such as foliage or hair. The Shift Edge slider expands or contracts the selection edges and can be useful to remove edge fringes.

The Blur tool allows you to paint blur effect on specific areas of an image. Select the Blur tool . Use the Options bar to customize tool settings, like Size, Hardness, and Strength, to get the effect you need. Click and drag over the part of the image you want to blur.