“It’s the little things.” This line from the movie Galaxy Quest—said with warm fondness—sums up my reaction to the Glossary page found on the Digital Photography Review website. Lot’s of terms. Good definitions. Way cool graphics.
Just as writers need dictionaries and thesauruses, image makers need good resources for the terms related to the evolving art and science of electronic imaging. This is especially true because new terms arise, old ones change, and some are just so darn confusing that we need to read different definitions from different sources.
While the chances are good you know exactly what a histogram is, maybe you could use a little clarification on the differences among “Pixels,” “Pixel Density,” and
The Digital Photography Review glossary is pretty nifty even when used to research words that we use every day (like “histogram.”) DP Review’s written definition of “histogram” is short and sweet, with no surprises there. But the graphics are great. Even the first one—which simply shows a histogram and divides it into “Shadows,” “Midtones” and “Highlights”—would be helpful to a new digital shooter, or perhaps to share with a client who wants to learn some basics.
Keep scrolling down and you’ll see some excellent images of a histogram (and the related image) getting stretched and pushed and clipped and all sorts of interesting things.
Too basic? Check out DP Review’s perspective on “Connectivity,” which includes both theoretical and practical transfer rates of USB 2.0 vs. Firewire. Still snoozing? How about “Dynamic Range”? It’s a basic concept, but the definition includes a graph so complex I’m still trying to puzzle out.
I am not advocating one glossary or research tool over another. After all, the Net is meant to be browsed! I always check out Wikipedia. After all, where else can you so quickly learn that “histogram” is derived from the Greek “histos,” which means “anything set upright”? And Wiki offers some pretty wild, if esoteric, external links, like the one to “Histograms: Construction, Analysis and Understanding with external links and an application to particle Physics.” Righhhhht.
For my general digital reference, I rely heavily on the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG), which I discussed in a previous posting. Not only do the guidelines offer a comprehensive and up-to-date resource, but they are far, far more comprehensive than just a glossary. And UPDIG is based on “real life” best practices and written by photographers for photographers.
Still, the Digital Photography Review glossary is excellent, and it’s a good resource to bookmark to add to your online research arsenal.
What are your top online destinations for good, solid fundamental digital imaging research? What bookmarks can you recommend that other ACMetaforum readers add to our research arsenals?