Browse All 840 Photography Terms A–Z

Saturation Colour & Colour Management % The intensity or purity of a colour, from fully neutral grey to the most vivid version available.

Scheimpflug Principle Focus & Depth of Field degrees The rule that when a lens is tilted, the subject plane, lens plane and image plane all intersect along a single common line. Subject, lens and image planes share one line

Screen Delivery Sizing Printing, Display & Output px Choosing pixel dimensions and compression for images intended to be viewed on screens rather than printed.

Screen-to-print Match Printing, Display & Output The correspondence between how an image appears on a calibrated display and how it appears as a print.

Scrim Lighting & Flash stops A translucent panel placed in front of a light to reduce and soften it without changing its position.

Selective Colour Colour & Colour Management An adjustment that targets one range of colours in an image while leaving the rest unchanged.

Selective Focus Focus & Depth of Field The deliberate use of a narrow zone of sharpness to direct attention to one element and suppress everything else.

Selenium Toning Film, Darkroom & Historic Processes dilution ratio A treatment that converts silver to silver selenide, deepening blacks and giving prints a subtle cool or purplish shift.

Self-portrait Genres, Movements & Theory A photograph in which the photographer is also the subject.

Sense of Scale Composition & Visual Design A cue within the frame that tells the viewer how large the subject actually is.

Sensor Cleaning Sensors & Digital Capture Removing dust from the sensor's cover glass, either by the camera's own vibrating filter or manually with a blower or swab.

Sensor Cover Glass Sensors & Digital Capture mm The protective glass stack in front of the sensor, incorporating the infrared cut and any low-pass filtering.

Sensor Crop Mode Sensors & Digital Capture × crop A setting that records only part of the sensor's area, producing a smaller file with a narrower angle of view.

Sensor Dust Sensors & Digital Capture Particles settling on the sensor's cover glass, which appear as dark spots in the image at small apertures.

Sensor Format Cameras, Formats & Systems mm The physical dimensions of a camera's sensor, which set its angle of view, depth of field characteristics and light-gathering area. Area ∝ width × height

Sensor Saturation Sensors & Digital Capture The condition in which a photosite has reached its full-well capacity and can record no additional light.

Sepia Toning Film, Darkroom & Historic Processes A chemical treatment that converts a print's metallic silver into silver sulphide, producing warm brown tones.

Shadow Play Motion, Video & Creative Techniques Using cast shadows as the primary graphic element of a photograph.

Shadow Recovery Post-Processing & Retouching stops The brightening of dark areas to reveal detail recorded but not visible in the default rendering.

Shallow Depth of Field Focus & Depth of Field m A narrow zone of sharpness that isolates the subject against a strongly blurred foreground and background.

Shaped Bokeh Motion, Video & Creative Techniques mm (aperture cut-out) Rendering out-of-focus highlights as a chosen shape by placing a cut-out mask over the lens.

Sharpening Post-Processing & Retouching % Processing that increases edge contrast to make an image appear crisper, without adding any real detail.

Short Lighting Lighting & Flash A portrait approach in which the side of the face turned away from the camera is the lit side.

Shot Noise Sensors & Digital Capture e⁻ (electrons) The unavoidable randomness in the arrival of photons, which produces grain even from a perfect sensor. SNR = √N

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