When you’re getting started with photography, and even when you’re a seasoned pro, there’s always something new to learn. Not to mention, the photography world is bursting with strange terms that you need to learn just to understand what you’re reading or what others are saying.
So, to give you a helping hand, we’ve compiled a glossary of many of the most common photographic terms in common use today. It’s not exhaustive and many may be familiar to you, but we’re sure that there will be many that you won’t know and the explanations for each could prove invaluable.
For ease of viewing, we've broken them down into three different sections; general terms that cover all aspects of photography applicable across all genres (ideal for beginners), lighting terms, and miscellaneous terms.
We recommend going through the guide page-by-page to get a good overview, but above and below, you'll also see links to each individual page for quick viewing.
For the miscellaneous photographic terms section, this also covers a range of Picfair-specific terms, ideally suited to those just setting out on therir photography journey. Such as how to differentiate between upload and download, what DPI, Giclée print and mount (or matts) actually mean, and also the difference between an editorial licence and a commercial licence. So, if you're just getting started, make sure to pay particular attention to this section to make the very most out of your Picfair Store experience.
We'd also recommend saving a link to this guide as a bookmark in your web browser, as it could come in very handy when you're working on your images, and you come across a term that you're particularly familiar with. Or, if you're doing some photography research on a new technique and need to know what a few unfamiliar terms mean, you can quickly refer to this guide.
And, as with everything else in the world of photography too, new photographic terms will emerge. When they do, we’ll update this guide as and when so you have the most up-to-date information available!
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