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Glossary
Histogram
A bar graph showing the distribution of tones in an image. The horizontal axis shows tone
level (bright ness), the vertical axis the number of pixels. The bars in the graph show the
num ber of pixels of a given brightness in the image. The histogram displayed in the Curves
window shows the distribution of tones for the currently selected channel, and can be used
for ref er ence when editing curves. See also Tone, Tone curve.
ICC
The International Color Consortium, an international organization working to develop stan-
dards for color management and color management profi les. ICC profi les were developed for
the conversion of color space information between devices, and are now on their way to be-
coming a global standard. ICC profi les have been proposed as an International Or ga ni za tion
for Standardization (ISO) standard. See also Profi le.
IEEE 1394
A high-speed transfer protocol defi ned by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics En gi neers
for connecting peripherals such as hard disks, MO drives, and digital cameras to a com put er
via a cable.
JPEG
A standard graphic format designed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. Images are
compressed using a discrete cosine transform that takes advantage of the properties of hu-
man vision, which is more sensitive to light in the lower wavelengths, to increase quantization
at lower frequencies. JPEG com pres sion is “lossy,” meaning that information is lost when
images are compressed, leading to a drop in image quality. A lossless compression option is
also supported in some implementations. JPEG images can be compressed to as much as 100:
1, though quality will be signifi cantly reduced. At a compression ratio of 20:1, image quality
is not noticeably diminished.
LCD
Liquid Crystal Display. LCDs are notable for their thinness, lightness, and the fact that they
consume relatively little energy.
Memory card
Used for storage of photographs in Nikon digital cameras.
Midpoint
Controls the output level for mid-tones in the original image. See also Tone, Tone curve.
NEF
An abbreviation of Nikon Electronic Format, an image fi le format developed by Nikon to sup-
port high-resolution, twelve-bit RAW image data. In Windows, NEF fi les have the ex ten sion
“.nef”. NEF images can be opened and edited only in Nikon Capture. The advantage of NEF
is that while user settings such as curves and color balance are saved, they are not applied
to the original image data. NEF images may thus be edited and saved several times without
degrading or altering the original image. NEF fi les however require a relatively large amount
of storage space. See also RAW image.