“Auto Adaptive Contrast Optimization” from Silver-Fast. See also DEE.

The darkest pixel in the image. In the levels curve, it is at the left end.

A measure of the amount of reflected or directly emitted light. See also Luminance.

Subtractive color model. Mixing the primary colors cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) theoretically results in a deep black. However, in practice, this rarely works because the primary colors used are not absolutely pure. For that reason, the color black is added (the “K” stands for “key”, which is short for “key plate,” a term from the printing press). Printers work in CMYK mode.

Device to measure color characteristics. Used, for example, to measure the color reproduction of monitors for the purpose of generating individual ICC profiles.

Color management ensures consistent color representation across different devices. The monitor is supposed to display exactly the colors read by the scanner, and the print is supposed to look exactly like the monitor display.

A highly saturated image appears colorful. Low saturation makes the image look flat due to the high content of gray.

See Gamut.

Reference to the temperature (in Kelvin) of a heated black body radiator, the hue of which is compared to the light of an incandescent lamp. High Kelvin values appear cold, and low Kelvin values appear warm to the human eye.

The color management system of Apple Macintosh computers.

“Digital Exposure Extender” – tool for selectively correcting highlight and shadow areas. Suitable for recovering overblown highlights and brightening shadows.

Color space for a specific device (e.g., Scanner-RGB in Nikon Scan).

Similar to DEE (see above), but applied to NEF RAW files afterwards. D-Lighting is fully reversible.

Dots per inch. Meant for printing, but also commonly used for monitors and scanners.

“Film Automatic Retouching and Enhancement” – hardware-based dust and scratch removal system of Canon scanners.

Color range of an image or a color space. The gamut is the entirety of visible colors that a device (such as a monitor, printer, scanner, or film) can reproduce.

“Grain And Noise Elimination” system from Silver-Fast. See also GEM.

“Grain Equalization and Management” from Applied Science Fiction. Also used by Nikon Scan.

Grain reduction system from VueScan.

The basis for color management systems, ICC profiles define the device-independent representation of colors.

“Image Correction and Enhancement” – hardware-based dust and scratch removal system from Applied Science Fiction. Also used by Nikon Scan. ICE relies on the infrared light source of the scanner.

“Image Color Matching” – the integral color management module of current Microsoft operating systems.

Hardware-based scratch removal system from VueScan.

Similar to SRD (see below). Unlike SRD, iSRD uses the infrared light source of the scanner to detect dust and scratches.

A standard test target for profiling devices, such as scanners. SilverFast ships with an IT8 target in the form of a slide.

“Lightness, Chroma, Hue” – a color model describing colors in terms of those three optical parameters.

Brightness or intensity of a color (in the context of this book).

“Pixels per inch” – used for images displayed on monitors.

Profile describing the color response of a particular printer with a specific paper and a specific ink. It is used to produce prints with accurate colors.

VueScan’s equivalent of ROC. See ROC.

“Red, Green, and Blue” – in the (additive) RGB color model, all colors are generated from red, green, and blue.

“Restoration of Colors” – a system from Applied Science Fiction for restoring the colors of faded film. Also used by Nikon Scan.

An ICC profile describing the color characteristics of a particular scanner to allow a correct interpretation of the colors of the scanned image.

“Smart Removal of Defects” – a software-based system for dust and scratch removal from SilverFast.

Soft Color space describing the colors of the image independent of the device used (e.g., film scanner, monitor, and printer). The working color space used for photos is usually Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB.

The brightest level in an image (not necessarily the color white). When setting the white point to a particular input level, this level will be corrected to become the highest possible output level. All higher input levels will be lost, since the corresponding pixels change to the color of the white point.