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Vistek Imaging and Photographic Terminology Database

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t

T (setting)
Setting that holds the camera shutter open until the shutter dial is turned or release is press the second time. This setting differs from " B" (Bulb) that is usually is a stand alone setting and never drains the battery power and thus ideal for really long time exposures.
Tablet (Graphics Tablet)
An input device that uses a stylus or specialized mouse to write or draw on the tablet surface to communicate with the computer.
Tagged
A photoshop image containing an embedded profile.
Tanks
Are containers for holding chemical solution for processing films.
Target
In the context of testing, the portion og the original to be scanned.
Tele (Telephoto)
A lens that makes a subject appear larger on film than does a normal lens at the same camera-to-subject distance. A telephoto lens has a longer focal length and narrower field of view than a normal lens and have a shallower depth of field than wide angle lenses. But it can do isolation of subject and have a longer reach without going near to the subject. Life can be very difficult in sports and wildlife photography. Telephoto lens whose focal length is longer than the diagonal of the film frame; in 35mm photography, lenses longer than 50-5Bmm; also referred to as a "long" lens.
Tempering bath
Large tank or deep tray filled with water maintained at the correct temperature for processing. Used to house tanks, drums or trays as well as containers of processing solutions.
Terabyte
Equivalent to exactly 1,099,511,627,776 bytes of information.
Terminator
A special resister pack or a block of resistors that tells the computer where the end of the SCSI chain is and ensures the electrical integrity of the bus signals. Terminators act as a filter to clear out electrical "noise" caused by multiple cables and devices.
Test strip
A strip of printing paper that is given a series of incremental exposure times ( such as 3, 6, 9, 12 seconds ) in order to determine the ideal base exposure time.
TFT
(Thin-Film-Transistor) Currently the highest quality of colour LC-Displays. TFT-displays are used in notebooks as well as in digital cameras.
Thermal dye sublimation printer
A high resolution, continuous tone printer. This technology allows the dot intensity to vary and to create many more colours than thermal wax. The dye are vaporized at the high heat and diffused across a small gap to the paper or transparency. Semi-transparent dots of cyan, magenta and yellow of varying intensities (usually 256 intensities) are overprinted to create more than 16 million hues. Thermal dye printers required special paper.
Thin Negative
A negative that is underexposed or underdeveloped (or both). A thin negative appears less dense than a normal negative.
Threaded lens
Some cameras allow the addition of additional lenses to increase the telephoto range or allow greater magnification for macro work. The most convenient way to add these accessory lenses is by means of a threaded lens. The end of the lens housing has threads that these other lens can thread into, which an adapter can be attached to accept the accessory lenses.
Threshold
The point at which an action begins or change. The threshold setting used in scanning line art determines which pixels are converted to black and which will become white. The threshold defined in the USB process determines how large a tonal contrast must be before sharpening will be applied to it.
Thumbnail
A small, low resolution version of a larger image file that is used for quick identification or speedy editing choices.
Thumbnail index
A thumbnail index can be thought of as a "contact sheet" in traditional photography terms. Most digital cameras allow you to view the images on the storage card in a thumbnail index as an option during playback. Most use a 3 x 3 grid of images, but this does vary between cameras (some even allow you to specify the number of images to be displayed in the index). Often you can still carry out basic functions such as deleting or protecting images while in thumbnail index mode. TIFF: The Tagged-Image File Format (TIFF) is used to exchange files between applications and computer platforms. TIFF is a flexible bitmap image format supported by virtually all paint, image-editing, and page-layout applications. Also, virtually all desktop scanners can produce TIFF images. This format of file uses the .tif extension. The TIFF format supports CMYK, RGB, and grayscale files with alpha channels, and Lab, Indexed Colour, and Bitmap files without alpha channels. TIFF also supports LZW compression.
TIE (Tagged Image Extraction)
A technology that extracts only the part of the image from a server needed for display on a screen. This is used to reduce network traffic when viewing an image.
TIFF
Tag Image File Format. A popular image file format supported by the majority of image-editing programs running on a variety of computer platforms.
Tiling
Reproducing a large image by breaking the image into parts, or tiles. When pieced together, they reproduce the original image.
Time exposure
An exposure in which the shutter stays open for as long as the photographer keeps the shutter release depressed. Time exposures maybe necessary in dim light and are usually made using a cable release and with the camera mounted on a tripod.
Time-Lapse
Capturing a series of images at preset intervals.
Tolerance
In Photoshop tolerance describes a certain distance between adjacent pixels. Tolerance is used with the Wand Tool for making selections and the Paint Bucket Tool for painting. The tolerance values can be adjusted for these tools. For example, when the Wand Tool is set to a tolerance of one, only a small selection will be created because the distance between the selected pixel value and adjacent pixels is only one.
Tone compression
A reduction in the range of the hues and values in an original.
Tone curves
A term for an adjustment available on certain scanners. Beginning as a 45° angle line running up to the right, this line is adjusted into a curve shape by the user to effect colour or tone correction. The lower left end of the curve typically represents the dark portions of a picture and an upward bend will typically lighten the shadows. Similar capabilities exist by working with the middle or highlight parts of the curve. In this way it is possible to alter only certain tone ranges of an image without making un-wanted changes in other parts of the image.
Tone values
Various shades of gray between the extremes of black & white in a photographic image.
Tones
Refers to the strength of grays between white and black. It relates to the brightness, lightness and darkness of the subject and is determined by illumination.
Toolbox
The floating palette of tools in Photoshop that contains the tools that are needed to select, edit, paint, and view areas of an image.
Transfer function
The capability of a device to transmit frequencies. See also MTF.
Transfer Rate
The rate at which data can be transferred, usually expressed as Kilobits per second (Kbps) or bytes per second (Bps).
Transmittance
The fraction of the light that passes through an object.
Transparency
A positive image on a transparent base, such as film or glass, viewed by transmitted rather than reflected light. When mounted in a metal, plastic or cardboard mount, a transparency is called a slide. Also Archival terminology for a 4x5 sheet of film.
Transparency scanner
An optical input system for digitizing images from small format positive or negative transparency film.
Tri-stimulus value
The amount of each of the three primaries red, green and blue ( R, G and B ) needed to match the colour of the light on an object.
Trilinear scanner
A scanning device that uses three linear array charge coupled devices utilizing red, green and blue filters to capture colour scans in a single pass.
Tripod
A three-legged stand used to hold the camera steady. Not all inexpensive cameras have a tripod fitting, usually a threaded hole on the bottom. Tripods are especially useful when using slower shutter speeds and/or telephoto lenses.
True Colour
Describes the colour output on a monitor or printer. Requires at least 16 million colour nuances.
TTL flash
Through the lens ( TTL ) automatic flash output control uses a light sensor that measures the flash intensity through the lens, as reflected by the subject on the film, then shuts off the flash when the measurement indicates a correct exposure.
Tungsten film
Often called Type B. Film that is balanced to record colour correctly under tungsten lighting.
Tungsten light
Light that is roughly 3200 degrees Kelvin in colour temperature.
TWAIN
Protocol for exchanging information between application and devices such as scanners and digital cameras. TWAIN makes it possible for digital cameras to "talk" with one another on PC's.
Tweening
Placing between or interpolating the area between pixels.
Type A film
Colour film balance to produce accurate colour renditions when the light source that illuminates the scene, has a colour temperature of about 3400K as does a photoflood.
Type B film
See tungsten film.

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