"Color management" is a process where the color characteristics for every device in the imaging chain is known precisely and utilized to better predict and control color reproduction. For digital photography, this imaging chain usually starts with the camera and concludes with the final print, and may include a display device in between.

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Image interpolation occurs in all digital photos at some stage-- whether this be in bayer demosaicing or in photo enlargement. It occurs anytime you resize or remap (distort) your image from one pixel grid to another. Image resizing is necessary when you need to increase or decrease the total number of pixels, whereas remapping can occur under a wider variety of scenarios: correcting for lens distortion, changing perspective, and rotating an image.

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Dynamic range in photography describes the ratio between the maximum and minimum measurable light intensities (white and black, respectively). In the real world, one never encounters true white or black-- only varying degrees of light source intensity and subject reflectivity. Therefore the concept of dynamic range becomes more complicated, and depends on whether you are describing a capture device (such as a camera or scanner), a display device (such as a print or computer display), or the subject itself.

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Posterization occurs when an image's apparent bit depth has been decreased so much that it has a visual impact. The term posterization is used because it can influence your photo similar to how the colors may look in a mass-produced poster, where the print process uses a limited number of color inks. This effect ranges from subtle to quite pronounced, although one's tolerance for posterization may vary.

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Sharpness describes the clarity of detail in a photo, and can be a valuable creative tool for emphasizing texture. Proper photographic and post-processing technique can go a long way towards improving sharpness, although sharpness is ultimately limited by your camera equipment, image magnification and viewing distance. Two fundamental factors contribute to the perceived sharpness of an image: resolution and acutance.

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"Image noise" is the digital equivalent of film grain for analogue cameras. Alternatively, one can think of it as analogous to the subtle background hiss you may hear from your audio system at full volume. For digital images, this noise appears as random speckles on an otherwise smooth surface and can significantly degrade image quality.

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This section is designed to help you develop a better understanding of how luminance and color both vary within an image, and how this translates into the relevant histogram. Although RGB histograms are the most commonly used histogram, other types are more useful for specific purposes.

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Understanding image histograms is probably the single most important concept to become familiar with when working with pictures from a digital camera. A histogram can tell you whether or not your image has been properly exposed, whether the lighting is harsh or flat, and what adjustments will work best. It will not only improve your skills on the computer, but as a photographer as well.

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The RAW file format is digital photography's equivalent of a negative in film photography: it contains untouched, "raw" pixel information straight from the digital camera's sensor. The RAW file format has yet to undergo demosaicing, and so it contains just one red, green, or blue value at each pixel location. Digital cameras normally "develop" this RAW file by converting it into a full color JPEG or TIFF image file, and then store the converted file in your memory card. Digital cameras have to make several interpretive decisions when they develop a RAW file, and so the RAW file format offers you more control over how the final JPEG or TIFF image is generated. This section aims to illustrate the technical advantages of RAW files, and makes suggestions about when to use the RAW file format.

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Knowing which image type to use ensures you can make the most of your digital photographs. Some image types are best for getting an optimal balance of quality and file size when storing your photos, while other image types enable you to more easily recover from a bad photograph. Countless image formats exist and new ones are always being added; in this section we will focus on options related to the two of the three formats most relevant to digital photography: JPEG and TIFF. The RAW file format is covered in a separate tutorial.

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