Rembrandt lighting.Same as 45-degree lighting.
Rim lighting. Portrait lighting pattern where the
main light is behind the subject and illuminates the edge
of the subject. Most often used with profile poses.
Rule of thirds.Format for composition that divides
the image area into thirds, horizontally and vertically. The
intersection of two lines is a dynamic point where the
subject should be placed for the most visual impact.
Scrim.A panel used to diffuse sunlight. Scrims can be
mounted in panels and set in windows, used on stands or
can be suspended in front of a light source to diffuse the
light.
Seven-eighths view.Facial pose that shows approxi-
mately seven-eighths of the face. Almost a full-face view
as seen from the camera.
Shadow.An area of the scene on which no direct light
is falling, making it darker than areas receiving direct
light, i.e., highlights.
Sharpening.In Photoshop, filters that increase appar-
ent sharpness by increasing the contrast of adjacent pix-
els within an image.
Short lighting.One of two basic types of portrait
lighting in which the main light illuminates the side of
the face turned away from the camera.
Slave.A remote triggering device used to fire auxiliary
flash units. These may be optical or radio-controlled.
Softbox.Same as a box light. Can contain one or
more light heads and single or double-diffused scrims.
Specular highlights.Sharp, dense image points on
the negative. Specular highlights are very small and usu-
ally appear on pores in the skin.
Split lighting.Type of portrait lighting that splits the
face into two distinct areas: shadow side and highlight
side. The main light is placed far to the side of the sub-
ject and slightly higher than the subject’s head height.
Spotmeter.A handheld reflected light meter that
measures a narrow angle of view, usually 1 to 4 degrees.
sRGB.Color matching standard jointly developed by
Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. Cameras, monitors, ap-
plications, and printers that comply with this standard are
able to reproduce colors the same way. Also known as a
color space designated for digital cameras.
Straight flash.The light of an on-camera flash unit
that is used without diffusion.
Subtractive fill.Lighting technique that uses a black
card to subtract light from a subject area in order to cre-
ate a better defined lighting ratio. Also refers to the place-
ment of a black card over the subject in outdoor portrai-
ture to make the light more frontal and less overhead.
TTL-balanced fill flash.Flash exposure systems that
read the flash exposure through the camera lens and ad-
just flash output to compensate for flash and ambient
light exposures, producing a balanced exposure.
Tension.A state of visual imbalance within a photo.
Three-quarter-length pose.Pose that includes all but
the lower portion of the subject’s anatomy. Can be from
above the knees and up, or below the knees and up.
Three-quarter view.Facial pose that allows the cam-
era to see three-quarters of the facial area. Subject’s face
usually turned 45 degrees away from the lens so that the
far ear disappears from camera view.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format).File format
commonly used for image files. There are several kinds
of TIFF files. TIFF files are lossless, meaning that no mat-
ter how many times they are opened and closed, the data
remains the same, unlike JPEG files, which are designated
as lossy files, meaning that data is lost each time the files
are opened and closed.
Umbrella lighting.Type of soft, casual lighting that
uses one or more photographic umbrellas to diffuse the
light source(s).
Unsharp Mask.A sharpening tool in Adobe Photo-
shop that is usually the last step in preparing an image for
printing.
USB/USB 2.0 (Universal Serial Bus).An external
bus standard that supports data transfer rates of 12MB
per second. USB is particularly well suited for high-speed
downloading of images from your digital camera straight
to your computer. USB 2.0 transfers data at a much
greater rate than USB, with a 480 MB per second in a
dedicated USB 2.0 port.
Vanishing Point.A point at which receding parallel
lines seem to meet when represented in linear perspec-
tive or a point at which something disappears or ceases to
exist.
Vignette.A semicircular, soft-edged border around
the main subject. Vignettes can be either light or dark in
tone and can be included at the time of shooting, or
added later in printing.
Watt-seconds.Numerical system used to rate the
power output of electronic flash units. Primarily used to
rate studio strobe systems.118 CHILDREN’S PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY HANDBOOK