COURSE DESIGN

COURSE TITLE : VIDEOGRAPHY NC II

NOMINAL DURATION : 264 hours

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course is designed to enhance the knowledge, desirable attitudes and skills in making
video presentations by operating camera and composing a subject, setting up studio lights,
equipment and accessories, performing post-production stages, and presenting finished products
in accordance with industry standards. The course will be divided into two parts, first part is
making a stage play then the second part is making a movie presentation

To obtain this, all units prescribed for this qualification must be achieved:

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS:

Trainees or students wishing to enroll in this course should satisfy the following requirements:

• At least grade 10 or Junior High / age 17 and above

• Be able to read, comprehend, and discuss printed information in English
• Be able to write simple statements, recognize numbers, and perform basic numeric
calculations
• Must bring a digital SLR camera with accessories like tripod, led light and the likes
 MODULE 1 (INFORMATION SHEET 1.1)

ELEMENTS & PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
After reading this INFORMATION SHEET, trainee must be able to determine and
apply the elements and principles used in making an artwork.
PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
Balance - It is the distribution of the visual weight of objects, colors, texture, and
space. If the design was a scale, these elements should be balanced to make a design
feel stable. In symmetrical balance, the elements used on one side of the design are
similar to those on the other side; in asymmetrical balance, the sides are different but
still look balanced. In radial balance, the elements are arranged around a central point
and may be similar.

Emphasis - It is the part of the design that catches the viewer’s attention. Usually
the artist will make one area stand out by contrasting it with other areas. The area could
be different in size, color, texture, shape, etc.
Movement - It is the path the viewer’s eye takes through the work of art, often to
focal areas. Such movement can be directed along lines, edges, shape, and color within
the work of art.

Pattern - It is the repeating of an object or symbol all over the work of art.

Repetition - It works with pattern to make the work of art seem active. The
repetition of elements of design creates unity within the work of art.
Proportion - It is the feeling of unity created when all parts (sizes, amounts, or
number) relate well with each other. When drawing the human figure, proportion can
refer to the size of the head compared to the rest of the body.

Rhythm - It is created when one or more elements of design are used repeatedly to
create a feeling of organized movement. Rhythm creates a mood like music or dancing.
To keep rhythm exciting and active, variety is essential.

Variety - It is the use of several elements of design to hold the viewer’s attention
and to guide the viewer’s eye through and around the work of art.
Unity - It is the feeling of harmony between all parts of the work of art, which
creates a sense of completeness.
 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN
The materials the artist uses in creating a work are the mediums and the elements put
together. An element of art can only be seen in some mediums. This element is
independent of the medium, for instant, a pencil line, or an ink line. The medium is the
physical means through which we can come into contact with a work of art, and the
elements are its quantities or properties. The elements of visual arts are line, color,
texture, perspective, space, form, volume, light and shadow.

LINE
Line is an important element at the disposal of every artist. Through the lines of a
painting or sculpture, the artist can make us know what the work is about. He uses
lines to represent figures and forms.
Lines always have direction. They are always moving. Lines, as used in any work of art,
may either be straight or curved.
Man usually lies prone when asleep or when at rest and stands erect when in action. He
stands stiff and straight when resistant or stern, and relaxes when in a playful mood
and the line of his body fall onto easy curves. When a man is in motion he bends
forward; and when encounters an opposing force, he braces against it. The greater the
opposing force, the sharper will be the angle of his body and the straighter the line will
be.
Man has learned that certain emotional states always find expression through definite
positions. He associates the emotions with the lines that define their accompanying
positions. When given a work of art, man calls upon his unconscious mind with its
accompanying emotional state. Straight lines are the basic frame work of many forms,
but it lacks softness and flexibility. Straight lines however, suggest efficiency, simplicity,
and strength. Straight lines are always with flexibility, buoyancy, and grace. The straight
line moves in one direction only. It may be either be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.
Horizontal lines are lines of repose and serenity. They express ideas of calmness and
quiescence. Horizontal line are found in reclining persons in landscapes, calm bodies of
water and the distant meeting of the earth and sky in what is commonly called horizon.

Vertical lines are lines poised for action. They suggest poised, balance, force, aspiration,
exaltation and dynamism. Vertical lines seen in man standing straight, a tall tree, and
statues of saints and heroes give an impression of dignity. Vertical lines also tend to
express as well arouse emotions of exaltations and inquietude and this is evident in
monumental architecture. The Gothic cathedrals express sentiments of inquietude and
exaltation that possessed the soul of Northern Europe in the later Middle Ages.
Diagonal lines suggest action, life and movement. They give animation to any
composition in which they appear. Almost every object in action assumes a diagonal
line. A running person makes a diagonal line with his body and legs. The degree of
action is shown by the angle of the diagonal.
As masters of any art try to perfect their technique, they are able to work more or less
instinctively, they begin to express themselves more and more through the freedom,
buoyancy, and grace of curved lines. They also have learned to restrict the use of
straight lines to types of work, the structural requirements of which are steadiness and
force.
Curved lines suggest grace, subtleness, direction, instability, movement, flexibility,
joyousness and grace. They are never harsh or stern since they are formed by a gradual
change in direction. They tend to impart these qualities to any work where they are
used. The restrained curved lines exemplified in the woman’s body and the bamboo
stem where according to Philippine legend, man and woman sprang.
Crooked or jagged lines expresses energy, violence, conflict and struggle.

Lines may also be classified into three groups: lines which follow or repeat one
another, lines which contrast with one another, it forms a transitional line which
modify or soften the effect of others.
Repetition occurs when two or more lines are drawn within a corner. Lines that are in
opposition to each other form a contrast. When a curved line cuts across a corner from
an opposition line to another, it forms a transitional line. Transitional lines modify the
sharpness of vertical lines and horizontal lines giving a harmonizing effect.
In painting, there should be an organic unity of lines to produce a balance and
symmetry, proportion of lengths and width, and rhythm.

COLOR
Of all the elements of art, Color has the most aesthetical appeal. Delight in color is a
universal human characteristic. Color is a property of light. When lights go out, color
goes with it.
The light of the sun contains all the colors of the spectrum: violet, indigo, blue, green,
yellow, orange, and red. These colors are so blended that they yield no sensation of
color. When a beam of light through a prism, a different rays of colors are separated so
we are able to see and identify them. When light strikes a surface, some of the color
rays are absorbed while other are reflected. Others pass through, especially when the
object is transparent. Most surfaces absorb all the color rays except those which yield a
single color sensation and therefore appear to be that color. A blue dress absorbs all
the color rays except the blue ray which it reflects. A red ball all the color rays except
red rays which is reflected. The color of the object therefore is determined by the rays
which are reflected to the eyes of the beholder. Objects that appear to be black
absorbed practically all the color rays and reflect one, while object that appear white
reflect all the color rays equally. Gray is due to the partial reflection of the color rays.
White, gray, black has no color quality. They are called neutral colors.

Three Dimensions of Color

Color has three dimensions or attributes: hue, value, and intensity.

Hue is the dimension of color that gives color its name. When we say the flower is
yellow, we are naming its hue. Color names such are red, blue, green, violet, and yellow
indicate the color characteristics called hue. Blue, red, and yellow are the primary hues.
If these primary hues are mixed in equal parts, the secondary hues are produced. The
secondary hues are orange, green, and violet. Orange is produced by mixing red and
yellow; green by mixing yellow and blue; and violet by mixing blue and red.
Colors may either be warm or cool. Red, Orange, and yellow are the warm hues. They
are associated with objects like the sun, fire, and other source of heat. They tend to
impart warmth to any composition in which they are used. They are conspicuous,
cheerful, stimulating, vivacious, joyous, and exciting. They are suggestive of impetuous
or instinctive action. They are called advancing colors because they have the effect of
advancing or coming towards you. The cool colors are those where blue predominates
like green, blue-green, blue, and blue-violet. They cause surfaces covered with them to
appear to recede. They suggest distance. They are calm, sober, restful, and
inconspicuous.
Red the color of fire and blood is the warmest, most vigorous, and most exciting of the
colors. It stands for passion and energy. Yellow, the color of light, is the most brilliant,
cheerful, and exultant of the colors. It suggests cheerfulness, magnificence, life and
splendor. It serves to balance the warm colors like red, orange, yellow. Green is the
color for vegetation and symbolizes life and freshness. Violet represents shadow and
mysteries; black – despair, death and pain; orange suggest deliciousness and warmth.
Blue, the color of the sky and of the deep and still water, is the coolest and the most
tranquil of the colors. It arouses the feelings of peace and quietness. Color and line
should not evoke an emotion as much as express it. The painting must express the
emotion intended by the artist Unless the spectator is made aware of this emotion as
truly there in the canvas, the painting is not aesthetic at all (Panizo and
Rustia).Through color and line, painting the spectator.

Value, sometimes called chiaroscuro, refers to the lightness or darkness of color. It is a

quality which depends on the amount of light and dark in color. They give the
expression of depth and solidity and lend form to paintings.

An understanding of value will help the artist to use colors to the best advantage. It
will offer important suggestions for the arrangement of color values in interior
decoration. The floor should be the best darkest in the room, the wall s should be
lighter, and the ceiling, the lightest. If the color of the floor is lighter than the wall, it
will not give the feeling of being a solid foundation.
Tints are values above the normal and shades are values below the normal. Pink is a
tint of red, maroon is shade of red. Sky –blue is a tint, navy-blue is a shade.
The value of a hue can be changed. We raise it by adding more light to it so that it
reflects more light and lower it by reducing the light it can reflect.

Intensity is the third dimension of color. It refers to the brightness or darkness of

color strengths. Colors differ in intensity. Intensity differences may be described as full
intensity, two-thirds intensity, two-thirds neutral. Two color may be both blue one is
more intense than the other. When it is dulled, it is said to be partly neutralized. The
more black or white is added, the weaker is the intensity.
Color plays an important role in the work of artist. Painters use one color to balance
and enrich the other and to awaken the emotion responses of the spectator. Although
painting is known as the art of color, color is also important in sculpture and
architecture Building are painted; bronze is selected for its rich brown color and
architecture and marble for its whiteness.

Color Harmonies
There are two kinds of color harmonies: related color harmonies and contrasted color
harmonies.
Related color harmonies. These may either be monochromatic or adjacent.
Monochromatic harmony is made up several tones of one hue, like for instance orange
family. Monochromatic harmonies are the simplest and easiest tom use. Different
tones of the same hue all have something in common, so it is easy for them to agree.
In adjacent or neighboring harmony, two or three neighboring hues on the color circle
are used together. For example, tones of green, yellow, and orange can produce a
delighted harmony. They have something in common because there is yellow in green
and in orange. Good adjacent harmonies can be produced by using other group of
neighboring colors like yellow, orange, and red or orange, red, and violet.
Contrasted color harmonies. Colors which lie directly opposite each other in the color
circle are complementary colors. Red and green, orange and blue, violet and yellow are
complementary colors. Red and green, orange and blue, violet and yellow are
complementary colors. They contrast with each other strongly; therefore, they are
more difficult to use harmoniously than the related color combinations.

Psychology of Colors
One important thing the artist has to remember is that colors are known to have varied
psychological and emotional connotations. Black, for example, is associated with death
and gloom; white stands for purity and innocence. Blue is the color of heaven while
red is associated with blood. Red signifies anger and provokes fear. Red impels people
to action. Orange helps a person be assertive. Green is the color of nature, promotes
the feeling of well-being. It implies happy and restful association and natural
abundance. It is wise for the artist to remember these psychological connotations when
choosing color for his work. Architects, for example, are known to use different color
relationships for a church and for a reception room in order to create the right mood
among the observers.

Meaning of Colors Conveyed by the Rose

Talking of colors, although the rose itself is not man’s creation, having different colors
that convey different meanings, the rose is the flower worthy of mention for its varied
psychological and emotional connotations. It is the universal flora of love but one
should not just send any rose because of different meanings conveyed by its different
colors.

If you are harboring a secret affection for a special girl, it would be more appropriate
to send her white roses. White roses denote secrecy and several other meaning such as
innocence, purity, reverence, and humility. Most people think pink is the color of love.
It is not exactly so when it comes to roses. Deep pink roses convey gratitude and
appreciation. It is most appropriate for those who would like to say “thank you.” The
lighter pink on the other hand, expresses sympathy. They also stand for grace and
gentility.

It is the red roses that say “I love you.” They also mean courage and fortitude.
Yellow roses represent joy and freedom. If you combine the red and yellow, they stand
for jovial and happy feelings. Coral or orange roses, on the other hand, speak
enthusiasm and desire. If you want to convey the message of unity, better send red and
white roses together.
If you want to tell your sweetheart that you are ready to settle down, do not send her
the usual three roses. Send her only two because it means, in the language of roses, that
you are ready for marriage.

A single rose, on the other hand, simply means simplicity. The rose has long been the
symbol of affection among lovers the world over. This explains why the roses is said to
be the only flower the world over. This explains why the rose to be the only flower;
whose demand year after year has never diminished.

TEXTURE
Texture is a color that deals more directly with the sense of touch. It has to do with the
characteristics of surfaces which can be rough or smooth, fine course, shiny or dull,
pain or irregular. Texture is best appreciated when an object is felt with the hands.
Texture is found in all the visual arts. A painting, a building, or a piece of sculpture has
textures which are felt and described in a variety of ways. Texture is due primarily to
difference in medium. In architecture, the different feel of wood, concrete, and metal,
determines the texture of the building. The sculptor can also produce differences in
texture in his works. He can leave marks on the surfaces of a statue. Together with the
other elements, texture can contribute to the total effect of the finished work of art.
In painting, texture is exhibited through the representation of the skin, clothes, jewelry,
furniture, and others. Texture can add richness and vitality to paintings. Contemporary
painters have realized the important effects of their texture on their work. During the
nineteenth and twentieth century’s, a high premium was placed on very smooth
surfaces and forms. A group of painters including Cezanne, Picasso, and others
emphasized texture by purposely making potions of the paintings rough.
The aesthetic value of texture lies first of all in the fact that it makes gradation of color
possible. Texture gives a surface unevenness which causes the color of surface to be
broken into gradations of light and shade. Texture is very real to the sculptor and
architect because wood, stone, brick, concrete, and metal feel differently. To the
painter texture is an illusion. He must make an object look the way it would feel when
one touches it.

PERSPECTIVE
Perspective deal with the effect of distance upon the appearance of objects, by means
of which the eye judges spatial relationships. It enables us to perceive distance and to
see the position of objects in space. There are two kinds of perspective: linear
perspective and aerial perspective. To get depth or distance, an artist uses both linear
and aerial perspective.
Linear perspective is the representation of an appearance of distance by means of
converging lines. The tracks of a railroad appear to the viewer as seeming to rise and
meet in the distance. Linear perspective involves the direction of lines and the size of
the objects. Painters usually show the effect of space and distance by using converging
lines and diminishing size. Parallel lines below eye level seem to rise to a vanishing
point. Near objects are seen in full intensity of color. Objects appear smaller as they
recede into the distance. People or objects, at the background of a painting seem to be
shorter than those in front.
Aerial perspective is the representation of relative distances of objects by gradations of
tone and color. Objects become fainter in the distance due to the effect to the
atmosphere. Objects appear to be lighter in color; objects become grayer, details are
dissolved and contrast are diminished and the outline more vague as they recede into
the distance or into the atmosphere. Perspective is important in painting because is to
be presented on a two-dimensional surface.

SPACE
In painting, as in architecture, space is of great importance. The exterior of a building is
seen as it appears in space, while the interior is seen by one who is inside an enclosing
space. Painting does not deal with space directly. It represents space only on a two-
dimensional surface. Sculpture involves very little space relationship or perception of
space.
FORM
Form applies to the over-all design of a work of art. It describes the structure or shape
of an object. Form directs the movements of the eyes. Since form consist of size and
volume, it signifies visual weight. Every kind of form has its own aesthetic effect. All
the visual arts are concerned with form. Sculpture and Architecture deal with three-
dimensional forms. Sculpture, however deals with exterior form alone because one
cannot get inside a statue. The sculpture is restricted to masses in relation to other
masses as a means of interpretation.
Good architecture allows outward forms to be governed by what goes on inside them.
A house is a place for a family, therefore the inside should be carefully designed to
meet the needs of the family. If the exterior form of the house express clearly the
interior form, the house becomes a good piece of art. A church must express on the
outside, that the inside is a place of worship for it to become a good work of art.
Throughout, the use of forms therefore, is the guiding principle “form follows
function.” This means that the inner content of purpose or function governs the outer
appearance.
In addition to function, another factor in determining form is the way in which a
building is constructed. The skyscrapers would not have been built had not been made
necessary by rising land values resulting from urban congestion. Great architecture,
therefore, is produced only when the elements of function and construction are
integrated by creative design.
Triangles, circles, and rectangles are favorite designs used by the painters. Tables,
buildings, picture frames, and furniture are usually composed of cubes or rectangular
solids. Oranges, electric bulbs, lakes and domes are shaped as spheres. Trees,
mountains, and flowers are cones. The trunk of trees, human arms or legs, and pencils
are cylinders.
Architecture is also concerned with shape of planes, openings, and silhouettes of
building forms. In painting or other two-dimensional art, the form usually an area on a
flat surface enclosed by a line, stands out because of the differences in color, value, or
texture. This is the reason why it is sometimes difficult to recognize circles, cubes, or
triangles or other geographic forms in paintings, because they are seen in parts, or as
the objects themselves. To develop our ability to recognize these shapes or forms is to
see objects around us having a particular color, texture, or tone.
Forms are classified into:
Regular forms are those whose parts are related to one another in a consistent and
orderly manner. Examples are platonic solids.

Irregular forms are those whose parts are dissimilar and unrelated to one another. They
are generally asymmetrical and dynamic.

Centralized forms consist of a number of secondary forms clustered to produce a

dominant, central, and parent form.

Linear Forms are arranged sequentially in a row or a series of forms along a line.
Radial Forms are composition of linear forms that extend outward from central form
in a radial manner.

Grid forms are modular forms whose relationships are regulated by three dimensional
grids. A grid is a two or more intersecting sets of regularly spaced parallel lines.

VOLUME
The term volume refers to the amount of space occupied in three dimensions. It
therefore refers to solidity or thickness. We perceive volume in two ways: by contour
lines or outlines or shapes of objects, and by surface lights and shadows. This is the
primary concern of Architects because a building always encloses space. The building
must have everything neatly in place no matter what the angle the light fall on it or
form what ever view we look at it. The outline or shadows change every time the
viewer shifts his position. The viewer therefore, may obtain not one but many different
impressions from a single work.
The sculptor is also concern with volume because his figures actually occupy space and
can be observed from any direction. The direction of the sunlight will determine the
areas of light and shadows. The outlines and shadows change every time the viewer
changes his position.

Because painting is two-dimensional, volume is an illusion because the surface of the

canvas is flat. The painter can only suggest volume. To make his figures have the
illusion of thickness, the painter decides arbitrarily from what direction he wants the
light to fall. He then paints the lightest portions bright and those in the shadow, dark.
VALUES OF COLOR
Value is the lightness or darkness of color. Value is the amount of light in an object. A
surface that absorbs all colors or light rays will appear black. A surface that reflects all
colors equally will appear white. E produced by adding little Tints of color in oil paint or
watercolor may be produced by adding white pigment or water respectively. Shade of a
color is produced by adding a little black pigment to the color. Similar to the value scale
in dark-and-light, value of a color can be shown in seven steps. Black and white are
omitted as these are impossible to be represented on paper for obvious reasons. Dark
orange is brown and yellowish brown is tan. Colors of light are yellow, while navy blue
(blue and black) is shade. Indigo is deep blue-violet and vermillon is brilliant red.
PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF VALUES IN COLOR
The effects of color values are similar to those in dark-and-light. Light values or tints
make the size of objects appear larger because these values reflect light. Therefore, they
are more advancing than dark hues. An individual seems to look larger in light colored
clothing. Light hues also seem to recede when seen from above, as in a ceiling. Hence
rooms can be made to appear higher by painting the ceiling with light colors. In
perspective, distant object appear to have light values because these values suggest
distance or background. Dark hues or values seem to decrease the size of objects
because these values absorb light. Large people should wear dark colored clothes to
make them appear smaller. A dark color also suggest foreground or nearness. In this
case, floors and rugs must be of dark hues. Besides darked colored floors make the
rooms appear stable. Store goods on display must be so arranged that those low and
dark values are below and those with light or high values are above, to give an
impression of stability.
White on black background is more conspicuous than black on white background
because white reflects light white black absorbs it. A color appears darker against a
white background but lighter against black or gray. Related values are quite and restful
and trend to merge into each other. Contrasting hues emphasis each other.
 PRELIMENARY EXAM

ELEMENTS & PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

1. Fill in the blanks:

BALANCE EMPHASIS MOVEMENT PATTERN RHYTHM

UNITY LINE PROPORTION COLOR VARIETY FORM
TEXTURE SPACE PERSPECTIVE REPETITION

Choose from among the words above. And identify the definition of terms. (2 pts.
Each)

_______________ It is the distribution of the visual weight of objects, colors,

texture, and space. If the design was a scale, these elements should be balanced to
make a design feel stable.

_______________ It moves in one direction only. It may be either be horizontal,

vertical, diagonal, or curved.

_______________ In painting, as in architecture, it is of great importance. The

exterior of a building is seen as it appears in it, while the interior is seen by one who is
inside an enclosing it. Painting does not deal with it directly. It is represented only on a
two-dimensional surface.

_______________ It is the path the viewer’s eye takes through the work of art,
often to focal areas. It can be directed along lines, edges, shape, and color within the
work of art.

_______________ It is the part of the design that catches the viewer’s attention.
Usually the artist will make one area stand out by contrasting it with other areas. The
area could be different in size, color, texture, shape, etc.

_______________It applies to the over-all design of a work of art. It describes the

structure or shape of an object. It directs the movements of the eyes. Since form
consist of size and volume, it signifies visual weight.

_______________ It deals with the effect of distance upon the appearance of

objects, by means of which the eye judges spatial relationships. It enables us to
perceive distance and to see the position of objects in space.
_______________ It is found in all the visual arts. A painting, a building, or a piece
of sculpture has it which are felt and described in a variety of ways. It is due primarily
to difference in medium.

_______________ Of all the elements of art, It has the most aesthetical appeal.
Delight in it is a universal human characteristic. It is a property of light.

_______________ It is the repeating of an object or symbol all over the work of

art.

_______________ It is created when one or more elements of design are used

repeatedly to create a feeling of organized movement. Rhythm creates a mood like
music or dancing. To keep rhythm exciting and active, variety is essential.

_______________ It works with pattern to make the work of art seem active. The
repetition of elements of design creates unity within the work of art.

_______________ It is the feeling of harmony between all parts of the work of art,
which creates a sense of completeness.

_______________ It is the feeling of unity created when all parts (sizes, amounts,
or number) relate well with each other. When drawing the human figure, proportion
can refer to the size of the head compared to the rest of the body.

_______________ It is the use of several elements of design to hold the viewer’s

attention and to guide the viewer’s eye through and around the work of art.
2. Enumeration:

Kinds of Lines:

1. _______________________
2. _______________________
3. _______________________
4. _______________________
5. _______________________

Dimensions of Color:

1. _______________________
2. _______________________
3. _______________________

Kinds of Form:

1. _______________________
2. _______________________
3. _______________________
4. _______________________
5. _______________________

Value of Color:

1. _______________________
2. _______________________
 MODULE 1 (INFORMATION SHEET 1.2)

CAMERA TERMINOLOGIES
Learning Objectives:

After reading this INFORMATION SHEET, trainee must be able to determine the
terminologies used by VIDEOGRAPHERS.

AA cell - In the digital camera world this refers to the most common power source,
the AA-size battery. See also "NiCd" and "NiMH" and check here: NiMH
Batteries/Chargers
AC Power - Running your digital camera off the wall outlet power rather than by
battery power. Usually means purchasing optional AC power adapter.
Add-On Lens - Some lenses have filter threads on the front edge that allow you to
mount an auxiliary wide angle or telephoto lens in addition to the standard lens.
AE - Auto Exposure, a system for automatically setting the proper exposure according
to the existing light conditions. There are three types of AE systems:
Programmed: where the camera picks the best shutter speed and aperture automatically;
Aperture Priority: the user chooses an aperture value and the shutter speed is
automatically determined by lighting conditions; and
Shutter Priority: the user chooses a shutter speed and the aperture is automatically
determined by lighting conditions
AE Lock - The ability to hold the current exposure settings and allow you to point the
camera elsewhere before capturing the image. This is usually accomplished by half-
pressing the shutter button and keeping it at that position until you're ready to capture
the image.
AF - Auto Focus. A system that automatically focuses the camera lens.
Algorithm - A mathematical routine that solves a problem or equation. In imaging, the
term is usually used to describe the set of routines that make up a compression or
colour management program.
Anti-Shake - Konica Minolta's "Anti-Shake" feature is the mechanical shifting of the
imager to compensate for camera movement and minimise blurring at lower shutter
speeds. Putting this type of image stabilisation in the camera body of a dSLR means
that it doesn't have to built into the lenses and therefore it makes them lighter and less
expensive. See also "Optical Image Stabilisation"
Aperture - The lens opening formed by the iris diaphragm inside the lens.
Aperture Priority AE - Exposure is calculated based on the aperture value chosen by
the photographer. This allows for depth of field (DOF: Range of focus) control - large
aperture = shallow DOF and a small aperture = deep DOF.
Aspect Ratio - The ratio of horizontal to vertical dimensions of an image. The most
common aspect ratio in digital cameras is 4:3 so that images "fit" properly on computer
screens (800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024). Some cameras offer a 3:2 mode so that you
can print "perfect" 4x6" prints with no cropping necessary.
(35mm film is 3:2, TV sets are 4:3, HDTV screens are 16:9)
Aspherical Lens - A lens whose edges have been flattened so that it is not a perfect
sphere, produces a superior image.
Automatic Exposure - The camera automatically adjusts the aperture or shutter speed
or both for the proper exposure.
Autofocus - The camera lens focuses automatically, usually when the shutter release is
half-pressed.
AVI - Movie clip in Windows' AVI format. See "Movie clip"
AWB - Automatic White Balance. A system for automatically setting the white balance
in today's digital cameras. See also "White Balance"
B&W - Term used to mean black and white
Back Lit - The subject is heavily lit from behind which generally causes it to be
underexposed unless you use critical spot metering or use your flash
Backlight - The illumination for a colour LCD display. Early colour LCD used high
voltage fluorescent lamps, newer LCDs now use white LEDs which are much more
energy efficient.
Barrel Distortion - A common geometric lens distortion causing an acquired image to
pucker toward the centre and be "rounded" along the outer edges.
Bitmap - The method of storing information that maps an image pixel, bit by bit.
There are many bitmapped file formats, .bmp, .pcx, .pict, tiff, .tif, .gif, and so on. Most
image files are bit mapped. This type of file gives you the 'jaggies', when examined
closely you can see the line of pixels that create the edges.
Bleed - Printing term referring to an image or linked area that extends to the edge of
the printed piece.
Blue Tooth - The new wireless standard for connecting cameras, PDAs, laptops,
computers and cell phones. Uses very high frequency radio waves. Blue Tooth devices
when in-range (less than 30 feet) of each other easily establish a connection.
BMP - BitMapped graphic file format popular with Windows computers. This is an
uncompressed file format like TIFF.
Borderless - Means a photo print with no border around it. Old term for this was full-
bleed printing.
Bracketing - see Exposure Bracketing
Brightness - The value of a pixel in an electronic image, representing its lightness
value from black to white. Usually defined as brightness levels ranging in value from 0
(black) to 255 (white).
Buffer - A temporary storage area usually held in RAM. The purpose of a buffer is to
act as a temporary holding area for data that will allow the CPU to manipulate data
before transferring it to a device. Also see DRAM Buffer
Burst Mode - The ability to rapidly capture images as long as the shutter button is
held down. Also called Continuous frame capture.
Byte - An ensemble of eight bits of memory in a computer.
Calibration - The act of adjusting the colour of one device relative to another, such as
a monitor to a printer, or a scanner to a film recorder. Or, it may be the process of
adjusting the colour of one device to some established standard.
Card Reader - A device that you insert flash memory cards into to transfer the data to
the computer. Much faster than the serial port.
CCD - Charged Coupled Device, a light sensitive chip used for image gathering. In
their normal condition these are grey scale devices. To create colour a colour pattern is
laid down on the sensor pixels, using a RGBG colour mask (Red, Green, Blue, and
Green) The extra Green is used to create contrast in the image. The CCD Pixels gather
the colour from the light and pass it to the shift register for storage. CCDs are analog
sensors, the digitising happens when the electrons are passed through the A to D
converter.
CD - CompactDisc - read only storage media capable of holding 650MB of digital data.
CD-R - CompactDisc Recordable - a CD that you can write to once that can not be
erased.
CD-RW - CompactDisc ReWriteable - the newest kind of CD-R that can be erased
and re-used many times, holds about 450MB of data.
Centre-Weighted - A term used to describe an auto exposure system that uses the
centre portion of the image to adjust the overall exposure value. See also "Spot
Metering" and "Matrix metering"
CF - see CompactFlash and click here: Flash Memory Cards
Channel - One piece of information stored with an image. True colour images, for
instance, have three channels-red, green and blue.
Chromatic Aberration - Also known as the "purple fringe effect." It is common in
two Megapixel and higher resolution digital cameras (especially those with long
telephoto zoom lenses) when a dark area is surrounded by a highlight. Along the edge
between dark and light you will see a line or two of purple or violet coloured pixels that
shouldn't be there.
CIFF - Camera Image File Format, an agreed method of digital camera image storage
used by many camera makers.
CMOS - Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor - Another imaging system used
by digital cameras. It is not as popular as CCD but the future promises us even better
digital cameras based on CMOS sensors due to the lower amount of power
consumption versus the typical CCD device.
CMS - Colour Management System. A software program (or a software and hardware
combination) designed to ensure colour matching and calibration between video or
computer monitors and any form of hard copy output.
CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, black; These are the printer colours used to create
colour prints. Most colour printers, Ink-Jet, Laser, Dye-Sublimation and Thermal
printers use these as their printer colours. (This is one of the colour management
problems for computers. Converting RGB files to CMYK files cause's colour shifts.)
When used by a printer the CMYK is also known as a reflective colour since it is
printed on paper, or reflective films.
Colour Balance - The accuracy with which the colours captured in the image match
the original scene.
Colour Correction - The process of correcting or enhancing the colour of an image.
Colour Depth - Digital images can approximate colour realism, but how they do so is
referred to as colour depth, pixel-depth, or bit depth. Modern computer displays use
24-bit True Colour. It's called this because it displays 16 million colours, about the
same number as the human eye can discern.
CompactFlash (CF) - This used to be the most common type of digital camera flash
memory storage (now superceded by secure digital SD cards). It is removable, small
and commonly available in sizes from 16MB up to 8GB.
CF Type I the original 3.3mm high card
CF Type II cards and devices that are 5mm high.
Type I devices are all solid state but Type II devices include the IBM/Hitachi
Microdrive, a miniature, rotating hard drive.
Compression - A digital photograph creates an image file that is huge, a low-
resolution 640x480 image has 307,200 pixels. If each pixel uses 24 bits (3 bytes) for
true colour, a single image takes up about a megabyte of storage space. To make image
files smaller almost every digital camera uses some form of compression. See the
"JPG" entry below.
Continuous Autofocus - (Continuous-AF) The autofocus system is full-time and
works even before the shutter release is pressed.
Contrast - A measure of rate of change of brightness in an image.
CR-V3 - This is a 3V lithium battery used in many Olympus brand (and other) digital
cameras. It lasts much longer than alkaline but it is also more costly.
CRW / CR2 - The raw CCD file format used by Canon digital cameras. Abbreviated
from CanonRaW. Canon also has newer CR2 raw format as well.
Dark Frame - A noise reduction process whereby a camera takes a second exposure
of a black frame after the camera takes a long exposure (1/2-second or longer) image.
The image "noise" is easily identified in the black frame shot and is then electronically
removed from the actual image. This helps reduce the amount of hot pixels that
normally show up in long exposure shots from digital cameras.
DC - Direct Current. Battery power as in 9v DC battery
Decompression - The process by which the full data content of a compressed file is
restored.
Dedicated Flash - Describes an electronic flash that is made to be used only with a
specific model of camera. Canon, Nikon, Olympus and other cameras have specific
electrical contacts in the hot shoe to pass TTL-metering and AF range data to/from
the flash unit. You can not use a dedicated Canon flash on a Nikon camera for
example.
Densitometer - A tool used to measure the amount of light that is reflected or
transmitted by an object.
Depth of Field - depth of field (DOF) The range of sharp focus. Controlled by the
focal length and aperture opening of the lens. A large aperture yields shallow DOF.
Smaller apertures yield deeper DOF. Here's an online - DOF Calculator
(Be sure to follow the directions when calculating the DOF for your digital camera's
lens -- it is NOT calculated using the 35mm equivalent (i.e. 35-105mm) focal length
often quoted in our reviews -- you must use the real focal length of the smaller digital
lens. The site linked above has a listing of popular cameras and their real lens
specifications.)
Digital Film - Term used to describe solid state flash memory cards, commonly called
memory cards.
Digital Image Stabilisation (DIS) - An electronic method of minimising the effect
of camera shake during video recording. The most common method of DIS is to
capture a larger frame and electronically crop the edges depending on the direction of
camera movement. See also "Anti-Shake" and "Optical Image Stabilisation"
Digital Zoom - A digital magnification of the centre 50% of an image. Digital zooms
by nature generate less than sharp images because the new "zoomed" image has been
interpolated.

Digitisation - The process of converting analogue information into digital format for
use by a computer.
Diopter Adjustment - Adjusts the optical viewfinder's magnification factor to suit the
eyesight of the user. Look for a knob or dial next to or beneath the viewfinder's
eyepiece. Not all cameras have this feature.
DOF - Abbreviation for Depth of Field (see above).
Download - Transfer image data from the camera to the computer using a cable
attached to either the serial port (slow) or USB port (faster.)
DPI - Dots per Inch. A measurement value used to describe either the resolution of a
display screen or the output resolution of a printer.
DPOF - Digital Print Order Format. Allows you to embed printing information on
your memory card. Select the pictures to be printed and how many prints to make.
Some photo printers with card slots will use this info at print time. Mostly used by
commercial photo finishers or those Kodak kiosks you find in the mall.
DRAM - Dynamic Random Access Memory. A type of memory that is volatile - it is
lost when the power is off.
DRAM Buffer - All digital cameras have a certain amount of fixed memory in them to
facilitate image processing before the finished picture is stored to the flash memory
card. Cameras that have a burst mode have much larger DRAM buffers, often 32MB
or larger. This also makes them more expensive.
DSLR - Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera. Interchangeable lens digital camera.
Manufacturers include Canon, Fuji, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Sigma.
DVD - "Digital Versatile Disc"
DVD is DVD-Video recorded on a DVD-R or DVD-RW disc, which contains
superior quality video (MPEG-2) and audio. Typically, a DVD can hold more than one
hour of video.
DVD Video Parameter Settings
Frame Size: 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL)
Frame Rate: 29.97 frames/second (NTSC) or 25 frames/second (PAL)
Video Data Rate: 4~8 Mbps CBR or VBR (Constant/Variable Bit Rate)
Audio Settings: Stereo, 48 kHz and 192~384 kbps MPEG audio
Dye Sub - Dye Sublimation is a printing process where the colour dyes are thermally
transferred to the printing media. Dye sub printers use the CMYK (cyan, magenta,
yellow, black) colour format and have either three ribbons (cyan, magenta and yellow)
or high-end printers have four CMY plus a blacK. The paper is run in and out of the
printer four times, once for each colour and then a fourth time when a protective
overcoat is applied. Dye sub is continuous tone printing, it prints tiny square dots each
of which is denser in the centre and lighter on the edges. Dye sub prints rival
conventional photographs in both their colour gamut and longevity with water and UV
resistant qualities.
Dynamic Range - A measurement of the accuracy of an image in colour or gray level.
More bits of dynamic range results in finer gradations being preserved.
EPP - Enhanced Parallel Port - the newer hi-speed, bidirectional printer port on
modern computers. Some older digital cameras and scanners use the EPP port to
transfer data.
ERI-JPEG - Extended Range Imaging Technology, a new file format used in Kodak
professional digital cameras. This proprietary technology offers an innovative image
file format similar to a JPEG, but with the dynamic range and colour gamut
information of raw DCR camera files. Extended Range Imaging Technology files allow
you to easily open, edit, and print JPEG files within your JPEG workflow. Your JPEG
files are captured directly in the camera. With ERI, you'll have the extensive editing,
colour balance, and colour compensation capabilities of RAW digital negatives for
applying to your JPEG files.
E-TTL - Canon's Evaluative-TTL exposure system that uses a brief pre-flash before
the main flash to calculate the exposure index.
EV - Exposure Value, a very complex thing but in the digital camera world it usually
means the ability to override the auto exposure system to lighten or darken an image.
EVF - Electronic ViewFinder, a small colour LCD with a magnified lens that functions
as an eye level viewfinder. Usually found on video camcorders but they have been
showing up on super-zoom digital cameras where optical viewfinders are impractical.
(Canon Pro90, Fuji 2800Z, Olympus C-2100, Nikon Coolpix 5700).
EXIF - EXIF (Exchangeable Image File format) refers to the embedded camera and
exposure information that a digital camera puts in the header of the JPG files it creates.
Many graphic programs (Photoshop, ThumbsPlus, Qimage Pro, CameraAid) can read
and display this information.
Exif Print - Exif Print (Exif 2.2) is a new worldwide printer independent standard.
Under Exif 2.2, the digital still camera can record data tags for specific camera settings
and functions such as whether the flash was on or off, if the camera was in landscape,
portrait or night scene mode, etc. Referencing some or all of this information, an Exif
Print compatible application can process digital camera images intelligently based on
specific camera settings and the shooting environment.
Exposure - The amount of light that reaches the image sensor and is controlled by a
combination of the lens aperture and shutter speed.
Exposure Bracketing - the camera automatically takes a series of 3 or 5 pictures and
slightly varies the EV for each frame. This insures that at least one of the pictures will
be as close to perfectly exposed as possible.
Exposure Compensation - Lighten or darken the image by overriding the exposure
system. Also known as EV Compensation.
f-stop - A numerical designation that indicates the size of the aperture. It is inversely
proportional as a smaller number like F2.8 is a large opening and a large number like
F16 is a relatively small opening.
Field of View - please see FOV below.
File - A collection of information, such as text, data, or images saved on a disk or hard
drive.
File Format - A type of program or data file. Some common image file formats
include TIFF, JPEG, and BMP.
Fill Flash - The most popular use for flash is to fill (lighten) harsh shadows in sunlit
outdoor portraits. Most cameras with built-in flash units offer both auto-flash and fill-
flash modes. In auto-flash, the flash unit automatically fires when needed (i.e., in dim
lighting). In fill-flash mode the flash will fire for every shot, regardless of light level.
This is the mode to use to fill-in those harsh shadows in sunlit portraits (in auto-flash
mode, the flash probably won’t fire due the the bright ambient light level).
FireWire - Also known as "iLink" and officially designated as the IEEE 1394 protocol.
A high-speed data interface now being used on digital camcorders and some high-end
digital still cameras.

Firmware - An often-used micro program or instruction set stored in ROM. Usually

refers to the ROM-based software that controls a unit. Firmware is found in all
computer based products from Cameras to Digital Peripherals.
Fixed Aperture - Normally when a zoom lens goes from wide angle to telephoto the
aperture changes. If the camera has an option to fix the aperture value then it remains
constant regardless of focal length.
Fixed Focal Length - A term that describes a non-zoom lens, it is fixed at a given
focal length and is not variable.
Fixed Focus - A lens that is preset to a given focus distance, it has no auto focus
mechanism, set to give the camera the maximum depth of field
Flash - A built-in flash supplies auxiliary light to supplement natural or available
lighting conditions often resulting in better colour, better exposure, and improved
picture sharpness.
Flash Memory - This is the "film" for digital cameras, it can be erased and reused
many times. It is non volatile memory, data is preserved even when it is not under
power. They are several major types used in digital cameras.
Focal Length - A lens' angle of view, most commonly indicated as wide angle, normal
or telephoto. Usually compared to a 35mm camera's lenses as in "the camera has a
wide angle lens equivalent to a 38mm lens on a 35mm camera." See also "Zoom Lens"
Focus Assist - Some cameras employ a visible or invisible (infrared) lamp to illuminate
the subject so the auto focus can work in low light or total darkness.
Focus Lock - Pre-focusing the camera and then moving it to re-compose the image
before capturing it. Accomplished by half-pressing the shutter button and keeping it
held at that position while moving the camera to another point before pressing it all
the way to capture the image.
FOV - Field of View - The area covered by the lens' angle of view. This is important to
those with a digital SLR camera using lenses designed for 35mm film cameras. The
manufacturers specify the FOV for these lenses when used on a 35mm camera but not
when they're used on a modern dSLR camera.
FPX - FlashPiX - Trade name for a new multi-resolution image file format jointly
developed and introduced in June 1996 by Kodak, HP, Microsoft and Live Picture.
Frame - One of the still pictures that make up a video.

Frame rate - The number of frames that are shown or sent each second. Live action
relates to a frame rate of 30 frames per second.
Full Bleed - Printing term used when an image or inked area extends to the edge of all
four sides of the printed piece. Better known as "borderless" in today's world of inkjet
photo printers.
Gamma - A measure of the amount of contrast found in an image according to the
properties of a gradation curve. High contrast has high gamma and low contrast low
gamma.
Gamma Correction - In reference to displaying an image accurately on a computer
screen, Gamma correction controls the overall brightness of an image. Images which
are not properly corrected can look either bleached out, or too dark. For more info on
gamma, go here
Gamut - The range of colours that are available in an image or output process. It is
generally used in describing the capabilities of a printer to reproduce colours faithfully
and vibrantly - i.e. "The xxxxx printer has a wide colour gamut."
GIF - A graphic file format used mainly for Web graphic or small animated files. Not
good for photos as it only contains a maximum of 256 colours.
Gigabyte (GB) - A measure of computer memory or disk space consisting of about
one thousand million bytes (a thousand megabytes). The actual value is 1,073,741,824
bytes (1024 megabytes).
Gradation - A smooth transition between black and white, one colour and another,
colour and no colour.
Gray Level - The brightness of a pixel. The value associated with a pixel representing
it's lightness from black to white. Usually defined as a value from 0 to 255, with 0 being
black and 255 being white.
Gray Scale - A term used to describe an image containing shades of gray rather than
colour. Most commonly referred to as a black and white photo.
Guide Number - The output power rating of a electronic flash unit.
HAD CCD - Sony's latest CCD imager, HAD = Hole Accumulation Diode
Halftone Image - An image reproduced through a special screen made up of dots of
various sizes to simulate shades of gray in a photograph. Typically used for newspaper
or magazine reproduction of images but it is also how today's inkjet printers work.
Halftoning or dithering are the methods used to produce a smooth gradation of colour
versus distinct bands of colour or moirè patterns.
HD - Hard drive (aka HDD), the internal, large-capacity data storage unit in today's
PC computers.
HDTV - High Definition Television. New video "standard" that will resolve 1,125
lines in the United States instead of the traditional 525 lines of the NTSC standard.
The aspect ratio is 16:9 versus 4:3 of regular TV sets.
Histogram - A bar graph analysis tool that can be used to identify contrast and
dynamic range of an image. Histograms are found in the more advanced digital
cameras and software programs (graphic editors) used to manipulate digital images.
The histogram shows a scale of 0 - 255 (left to right) with 0 being black and 255 being
white.

Hot Shoe - A flash connector generally found on the top of the camera that lets you
attach a flash unit and trigger it in sync with the shutter.
Hologram Laser AF - Sony introduced a new laser-assisted auto focus system on the
Cyber-shot DCS-F707 that uses a safe Class 1 laser to paint a grid on the subject that
makes the auto focus fast and accurate. Also found on the DSC-F717, F828, V1 and
V3 cameras.
Hue - A term used to describe the entire range of colours of the spectrum; hue is the
component that determines just what colour you are using. In gradients, when you use
a colour model in which hue is a component, you can create rainbow effects.
i-TTL - Nikon's new flash exposure system, used on new D70 digital SLR and SB-600
and SB-800 Speedlights.
ICC Profile - The International Colour Consortium, a group that sets standard
guidelines for colour management in the imaging world. Click here to read their FAQs
about colour management and ICC profiles and the like. Most printers, monitors and
scanners as well as digital cameras, usually come with a driver disc for Windows and
Mac systems that includes ICC profiles for the particular device. Colour profiles simply
let one piece of hardware or software "know" how another device or image created its
colours and how they should be interpreted or reproduced.
iESP - Olympus' exposure metering system.
iLink - Sony's term for IEE-1394 FireWire data port found on Sony camcorders.
Image Processing - Capturing and manipulating images in order to enhance or
extract information.
Image Resolution - The number of pixels per unit length of image. For example,
pixels per inch, pixels per millimeter, or pixels wide.
Image Sensor - A traditional camera exposes a piece of light-sensitive film, digital
cameras use an electronic image sensor to gather the image data. See "CCD" and
"CMOS" as well as "Interlaced" and "Progressive Scan"
Image Stabilisation - An optical or digital system for removing or reducing camera
movement in telephoto zoom lenses. Usually found only on extremely long focal
length lenses such as the 10X lens on Sony and Olympus. Can also be found on
Panasonic 12X Leica zoom lens. Canon has has appended an "IS" abbreviation to its
Powershot S1_IS and S2_IS series of digital cameras.
InfoLITHIUM - Sony's "smart" lithium rechargeable battery pack. It has a chip inside
that tells the camera how long (in minutes) it will last at the current discharge rate.
Inkjet - A type of printer that sprays dots of ink onto paper to create the image.
Modern inkjet printers now have resolutions of up to 2880dpi and create true photo-
quality prints.
Interpolated - Software programs can enlarge image resolution beyond the actual
resolution by adding extra pixels using complex mathematic calculations. See
"Resolution" below
Intervalometer - Fancy term for Time-Lapse. Capture an image or series of images at
preset intervals automatically.
Interval Recording - Capturing a series of images at preset intervals. Also called time-
lapse.
IR - InfraRed (aka IrDA) uses an invisible (to humans) beam of light to either
wirelessly control a device or as a method of transferring data from camera to
computer (or printer) without cables. Some cameras also employ infrared in the auto
focusing system.
ISO - The speed or specific light-sensitivity of a camera is rated by ISO numbers such
as 100, 400, etc. The higher the number, the more sensitive it is to light. As with film,
the higher speeds usually induce more electronic noise so the image gets grainier. ISO
is the abbreviation for International Standards Organisation. (In the good old days it
was known as the "ASA film speed.")
"Jaggies" - Slang term for the stair-stepped appearance of a curved or angled line in
digital imaging. The smaller the pixels, and the greater their number the less apparent
the "jaggies". Also known as pixelization.
JFIF - A specific type of the JPG file format. Also known as EXIF
JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group - The name of the committee that designed
the standard image compression algorithm. JPEG is designed for compressing either
full-colour or grey-scale digital images of "natural", real-world scenes. It does not work
so well on non-realistic images, such as cartoons or line drawings. JPEG does not
handle compression of black-and-white (1 bit-per-pixel) images or moving pictures.
See "JPG" below.
JPEG2000 - The new JPEG compression standard that will be used in digital cameras
and software starting in 2000. It will feature higher compression but with less image
quality loss.
KB - Can be used to mean either a keyboard for a computer or more commonly "KB"
means a kilobyte of data.
Landscape Mode - Holding the camera in its normal horizontal orientation to capture
the image. See Portrait Mode.
LCD - Liquid Crystal Display. Two types: (1) a TFT high-resolution colour display
device like a tiny TV set. (2) A monochrome (B&W) information display using black
alphanumeric characters on a grey/green background. Note: like TV and computer
screens, LCD measurements are taken on the diagonal. 2 inch, 2.5 inch sized LCD is
the measurement from opposite corners.
LED - Light Emitting Diode. All those wonderful little red, green and yellow indicator
lights used on cameras, power supplies and most electronic devices.
Li-ion - Some digital cameras are packaged with a lithium-ion rechargeable battery
pack. Lithium batteries are lighter but more costly than NiMH or NiCd type of
rechargeable cells. Lithium cells can be recharged regardless of their state of discharge,
they're lighter in weight and maintain a charge better in colder temperatures. Li-ion also
holds a charge longer when idle.
Low Pass Filter - Most digital SLR cameras employ a Low Pass Filter (LPF) or Anti-
Aliasing (AA) filter in front of the imager to help eliminate colour aliasing (moire)
problems.
Macro - The ability of a lens to focus very close (less than 8") for taking pictures of
small objects at a 1:1 ratio.
mAh - A rating used in the consumption of power of an electronic device such as an
LCD or the storage capability of a device like an NiMH or Nicad rechargeable battery
(i.e. 2500mAh cell). It stands for milliAmperehour.
Matrix metering - In most digital cameras there is a matrix metering option which
uses 256 areas of the frame to calculate the best overall exposure value. see also: "Spot
metering" and "Centre-weighted"
MB - MegaByte, memory term meaning 1024 KiloBytes. Used to denote the size of a
flash memory card such as 4MB, 8MB etc.

MD - MiniDisc - Digital recording media like a small floppy disc. This is common for
audio data and has been used on several digital cameras sold in Japan and Europe but
not in the U.S. yet.
Megapixel - CCD resolution of one million pixels. digital cameras are commonly rated
by Megapixels. You multiply the horizontal resolution by the vertical resolution to get
the total pixel count:
Memory Stick - A flash memory card standard from Sony. They resemble a stick of
gum. Used in Sony cameras prior to 2003. See Sony Memory Sticks.
Memory Stick Pro - The year 2003 upgrade to Sony's Memory Stick flash cards. The
new MS Pro cards are available in 256MB, 512MB and 1GB capacities and offer faster
read/write times.
Metering - Used to calculate the exposure from the existing light conditions. See:
"Matrix Metering," "Spot metering" and "Centre-weighted"
Microdrive - IBM/Hitachi miniature hard disk drive for digital cameras and PDA
devices. Packaged in a CompactFlash Type II housing and available in 170MB, 340MB,
512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB capacities.
miniCD - The small diameter (3-inch) CD discs. miniCD-R and miniCD-R/W discs
are used in the Sony Mavica "CD" series (CD200, CD250, CD300, CD400 and
CD1000) digital cameras. Their maximum capacity is ~165MB
mm - millimeter, measurement to denote the focal length of a lens (i.e. 50mm)
MMC - MultiMedia Card, a flash memory card used in some digital cameras and MP3
players. It is identical in size and shape to the Secure Digital (SD) flash cards.
Moirè - A visible pattern that occurs when one or more halftone screens are
misregistered in a colour image. Often produces a coloured checkerboard or rainbow
pattern.
MOV - Apple QuickTime MOVie file format. See "Movie clip"
Movie clip - A sequence of motion captured in AVI, MOV or MPEG format. Some
digital cameras can capture short movie sequences, some can also record the sound.
Motion JPEG - A video sequence composed of a sequence of JPEG compressed
images. Abbreviated to MPEG (see MEG below).
MP - Abbreviation for MegaPixel, i.e. 5MP or 5MPixel
MPEG - Motion JPEG movie file. See "Movie clip"
The digital video compression standard agreed upon by the Motion Picture Expert
Group, from the motion picture-computer industry. MPEG-2 is used by most
camcorders and MPEG-4 with a higher compression ratio is popular with digital
cameras that offer motion video recording.
MPEG-EX - Motion JPEG movie file created by Sony cameras. This was the first
motion video recording sequence mode that was limited in length only by the amount
of available storage space.
MPEG-HQX - Motion JPEG movie file created by year 2002 Sony cameras that
incorporates the MPEG-HQ (high quality, full-screen) and the unlimited recording
capability of MPEG-EX in 320x240 resolution.
MPEG-VX - Motion JPEG movie file created by year 2003 Sony digital cameras. It is
VGA resolution (640x480) at 16fps with audio and the length is limited only by
available storage space. VX Fine is 30fps, very high quality.

Multi-Pattern Metering - Exposure is determined by reading many different zones in

the frame. This yields a more optimum exposure than those cameras using only a
central zone metering system.
Multi-Point Focusing - The autofocus systems uses SEVERAL different portions of
the image to determine the proper focus.
Multi Zone Focusing - Many digital cameras now offer multi zone focusing. The
camera will automatically determine which zone (centre, left, right, upper, lower) to use
to perform the auto focusing. You no longer have to make sure that your subject is
dead-centre to be properly focused.
NEF - Raw image data file format used by the Nikon digital SLR (D1x, D100, etc) and
some Coolpix digital cameras. NEF means Nikon Electronic Format.
NiCd - Nickel Cadmium (aka Nicad), a type of rechargeable battery. Nicad was the
original type of rechargeable battery and has been pretty much replaced by the NiMH
type.
NiMH - Nickel-Metal Hydride, a type of rechargeable battery. NiMH is the more
modern type of rechargeable battery and has been touted as having no memory effect
as is common with Nicad type batteries when they are charged before they have been
fully discharged. Check here: NiMH Batteries/Chargers
Noise - Pixels in your digital image that were misinterpreted. Usually occurs when you
shoot a long exposure (beyond 1/2-second) or when you use the higher ISO values
from 400 or above. It appears as random groups of red, green or blue pixels.
Noise Reduction - Some cameras that offer long shutter speeds (exceeding 1 second)
usually have a noise reduction (NR) feature that is either automatic or can be enabled
in the menu. This is to help eliminate random "hot" pixels and other image noise.
NTSC - Term used to describe the 60 field video output (television) standard used in
the U.S. and Japan. See also "PAL" and "Video Out". In Australia the standard is PAL.
Most recent equipment switches automatically between NTSC and PAL.
OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer. Means that the piece of equipment is made
by one company but labeled for and sold by another company.
OLED - Organic Light Emitting Diode - Newly developed display technology that
could replace LCD. OLED does not require a backlight like LCD displays and
therefore is more energy efficient which is important to battery-operated portable
devices. It also offers increased contrast and a better viewing angle which means it can
be more easily viewed in bright (sunlight) conditions.
Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) - Most commonly found in higher-end dSLR
telephoto and tele-zoom lenses. OIS uses a spinning gyroscope and a lens element to
counteract camera movement and handshake at longer focal lengths and lower shutter
speeds. OIS is also incorporated into fixed-lens digital cameras, first seen on the
Olympus C-2500L and now being used extensively by Panasonic on their "FZ" series
of 12x super-zoom digital cameras.
Optical Viewfinder - An eye level viewfinder that is used to compose the photograph.
Recently this has been left off new cameras as the cameras become smaller and LCD
screens larger (and more power efficient).

Optical Zoom - Means that the camera has a real multi-focal length lens, this is not
the same as a "Digital Zoom" which magnifies the centre portion of the picture and
degrades the image.
ORF - Olympus RAW format. The unprocessed image format created by Olympus
E1, E10, E20, E300, E500 SLRs and C-5050, C-5060, C-7070, C-8080 Zoom cameras.
Orientation Sensor - A special sensor in some cameras that "knows" when your turn
the camera in portrait orientation to take a vertical shot and "tells" the camera to
display it that way later when viewed on the TV screen during playback.
Overexposure - An image that appears too light. All the highlights and colours are
totally lost and usually unrecoverable even by software.
PAL - The 50 field video format used primarily in Australia and Europe and other
places outside of the U.S. and Japan. See also "NTSC" and "Video Out"
Palette - A thumbnail of all available colours to a computer or devices. The palette
allows the user to chose which colours are available for the computer to display. The
more colours the larger the data and the more processing time required to display your
images. If the system uses 24-bit colour, then over 16.7 million colours are included in
the palette.
Panorama - Capturing a series of images to create a picture wider than what you could
capture in a single image. Requires special "stitching" software to combine and blend
the images into one finished image. Some recent Kodak cameras have in-camera
"stitching".
Parallax - An effect seen in close-up photography where the viewfinder does not see
the same as the lens due to the offset of the viewfinder and the lens. This is a non-issue
if using the LCD as a viewfinder or if your camera is a SLR type.
PC - In camera terms it denotes a type of flash synch connector, popular on most film
cameras.
PC - In computer terms it means a Personal Computer as in IBM-PC
PC Card - Refers to a credit card-sized device which can be a flash memory card, a
network card, a modem or even a hard drive. Comes in two flavors: Type I/II which is
a single slot height and Type III which requires a double-height card slot.
PCMCIA - The card slots found on laptop computers to use PC Cards. There are
PCMCIA adapters for CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard
and Memory Stick flash cards.
PictBridge - PictBridge is the standard for direct USB printing from digital cameras to
inkjet and dye sub photo printers without the use of a computer. Almost all new digital
cameras are PictBridge compatible.
Pin-Cushioning - A common geometric lens distortion causing an acquired image to
pucker toward the centre, usually found at telephoto focal lengths. See examples of it at
Andromeda's LensDoc page.
Pixel - The individual imaging element of a CCD or the individual output point of a
display device. This is what is meant by the figures 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768,
1280x960 and etc when dealing with the resolution of a particular digital camera.
Higher numbers are always better!!

Pixelisation - The stair-stepped appearance of a curved or angled line in digital

imaging. The smaller the pixels, and the greater their number, the less apparent the
"pixelisation" of the image. Also known as the "jaggies".
Plug-n-Play - An automated installation process used in MS Windows to connect
peripherals to a computer. When new devices are plugged into the computer the
computer recognises the device and prompts the user to choose setup options and
finish installation.
Polariser - A photographic filter for eliminating glare and reflections. Just like your
polarised sunglasses get rid of annoying glare, the polariser filter does the same for
your digital camera. However - there are 2 types, linear and circular. Linear is for film
only, it screws up most auto focus systems on digital cameras. Therefore be sure you
use a circular polariser filter. It can also be used to darken skies.
PNG - An image file format. PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. It is a
compressed file format similar to JPG.
Point and Shoot - A term used for a simple, easy to use camera with a minimum of
user controls. Generally the user turns the camera on, aims it at the subject and presses
the shutter button. The camera does everything automatically.
Polarising Filter - A filter than helps eliminate light reflections by limiting the angle of
light that reaches the lens. There are two types: Linear and Circular. Linear type filters
should not be used with digital cameras as they hinder the auto focus system. The
circular type filters can be rotated to adjust to the light angle needed.
PPI - Pixels Per Inch - A measurement to describe the size of a printed image. The
higher the number the more detailed the print will be.
Pre-Flash - Some digital cameras use a low-power flash before the main flash to set
the exposure and white balance. This does not allow the use of a normal photo slave
strobe as it will be triggered by the pre-flash.
Programmed AE - the camera picks the best shutter speed and aperture automatically,
also called "Automatic" or "Point-n-Shoot" mode.
Progressive Scan - Term used to describe an image sensor that gathers its data and
processes each scan line one after another in sequence. See also "Interlaced" for the
other method.
Prosumer - Refers to more expensive semi-professional digital cameras costing $1,000
and up. The average digital camera is made for the consumer market and costs well
under $1,000.
QuickTime - A motion video standard created by Apple. They have an entire
QuickTime web site to explain it. QuickTime video sequences can contain an audio
track and are stored as .MOV files.
QVGA - Refers to a Quarter-VGA resolution (320 x 240) motion video sequences.
RAM - Random Access Memory . The most common type of computer memory;
where the CPU stores software, programs, and data currently being used. RAM is
usually volatile memory, meaning that when the computer is turned off, crashes, or
loses power, the contents of the memory are lost. A large amount of RAM usually
offers faster manipulation or faster background processing.

Rangefinder - The viewfinder on most cameras is a separate viewing device that is

independent of the lens. Often mounted above and to the right or left of the lens. It
exhibits a problem known as parallax when trying to frame subjects closer than five
feet from the camera so it is advisable to use the colour LCD when shooting close-ups
for this very reason.
RAW - RAW files store the unprocessed image data - at 12 bits per channel - from the
camera's imaging chip to its memory storage device. Lossless compression is applied to
reduce file size slightly without compromising any quality. RAW image files must be
processed with special software before they can be viewed or printed. The advantage is
that you have the ability to alter the white balance, exposure value, colour values,
contrast, brightness and sharpness as you see fit before you convert this data into the
standard JPEG or TIFF format. Professional digital photographers import RAW image
data directly into photo-editing programs like Photoshop CS (which comes with a
Camera Raw import module that works with most popular RAW formats.)
Red-Eye - An effect caused by an electronic flash reflecting off of the human eye and
making it look red. Compact cameras with the flash located close to the lens suffer the
worst from this problem. Pro photographers use a bracket to hold an external flash
unit above and off to the side of the lens to eliminate red-eye. There are also software
options to remove red-eye.
Red-Eye Reduction Mode - A special flash mode whereby a pre-flash or a series of
low-powered flashes are emitted before the main flash goes off to expose the picture.
This causes the pupil in the human eye to close and helps eliminate red-eye.
Render - The final step of an image transformation or three-dimensional scene
through which a new image is refreshed on the screen.
Resize - Usually means to take a large image and downsize it to a smaller one. Most
graphic viewing and editing programs offer a Resize option for this purpose.
Resolution - The quality of any digital image, whether printed or displayed on a
screen, depends in part on its resolution—the number of pixels used to create the
image. More and smaller pixels adds detail and sharpens edges.
Interpolated Resolution adds pixels to the image using complex software algorithms to
determine what colour they should be. It is important to note that interpolation doesn't
add any new information to the image - it just makes it bigger!
Camera makers often specify the resolution as: QVGA (320 x 240), VGA (640 x 480),
SVGA (800 x 600), XGA (1024 x 768) or UXGA (1600 x 1200)
RF - Range Finder - a type of camera viewfinder that uses one lens to frame your
subject and another lens to capture the image. See "SLR" for the other type.
RGB - Means Red, Green and Blue - the primary colours from which all other colours
are derived. The additive reproduction process mixes various amounts of red, green
and blue to produce other colours. Combining one of these additive colours primary
colours with another produces the additive secondary colours cyan, magenta and
yellow. Combining all three produces white.
RS-232 - Standard type of serial data interconnection available on most PC type
computers. It's the slowest way to transfer image data from a camera. Most digital
cameras made after 2001 do not use serial ports, they use the faster USB.

Saturation - The degree to which a colour is undiluted by white light. If a colour is 100
percent saturated, it contains no white light. If a colour has no saturation, it is a shade
of gray.
Scanner - An optical device that converts images - such as photographs - into digital
form so they can be stored and manipulated on computers. Different methods of
illumination transmit light through red, green and blue filters and digitise the image
into a stream of pixels.
Scene Modes - Many digital cameras now have an exposure mode called SCENE
where the user selects the best pre-programmed scene to suit the current shooting
conditions. The camera will automatically change many settings to capture the best
possible image. For an overview of photographic scene modes, click here.
SD - Secure Digital card, a flash memory card used in digital cameras and MP3 players.
It is identical in size and shape to the MultiMedia Card (MMC) flash cards. The
difference being that SD cards were designed to hold protected (copyrighted) data like
songs. Not all cameras that use SD cards can use MMC cards so be sure to read your
owner manual before buying additional cards.
Secure Digital - Secure Digital. See "SD" above.
SDHC - SDHC high capacity card specification will allow manufacturers to develop a
new world of digital devices. SDHC (SD High-Capacity) Memory Card based on the
new SD Specification Version 2.00. This latest specification was established to meet
the growing demand for HD (High Definition) video and high-resolution image
recording now used in many SD-enabled devices. Camera manufacturers may issue
firmware updates for existing cameras which wouls allow these cameras to use the new
high capacity SDHC cards. SDHC cards have the same form factor as SD cards but
allow for capacities of 4 GB or greater (by using sector addressing rather than byte
addressing). Link to: SanDisk 4gb Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Memory Card
Self Timer - Preset time delay (2, 5 or 10 seconds) before the shutter fires. Allows the
photographer to get into the picture without using a cable release or remote control. It
is also great for taking macro shots as you don't touch the camera to trip the shutter
and thus eliminates any camera shake.
Sepia - The (brown) mono-toned images from the "bygone era" now often found as a
special image effect on some digital cameras.
Serial Port - Same as "RS-232" above.
Shutter - The physical device that opens and closes to let light from the scene strike
the image sensor. digital cameras use both electronic and mechanical shutters.
Shutter Lag - The time between pressing the shutter and actually capturing the image.
This is due to the camera having to calculate the exposure, set the white balance and
focus the lens. Reduce the lag by half depressing the shutter (pre-focus).
Shutter Priority AE - the user chooses a shutter speed and the aperture is
automatically determined by lighting conditions. Shutter speed priority is used to
control motion capture. A fast shutter speed stops fast action, a slow shutter speed
blurs a fast moving subject.
Skylight Filter - This is an UltraViolet absorbing filter that helps overcome the
abundance of blue in outdoor photographs. Not really necessary in digital photography
as the camera's white balance system adjusts for the colour temperature of the scene.
We do use them to protect the camera's lens from scratching, fingerprints or dirt.
Slow Sync - A flash mode in some digital cameras that opens the shutter for a longer
than normal period and fires the flash just before it closes. Used for illuminating a
foreground subject yet allowing a darker background to also be rendered. Good for
night time shots of buildings with people in the foreground. Often called Night Scene
or Night Portrait mode.
SLR - Single Lens Reflex - Means the camera has a viewfinder that sees through the
lens (TTL) by way of a 45°-angled mirror that flips up when the shutter fires and
allows the light to strike the image sensor (or film).
SmartMedia - SmartMedia memory cards are available from 64MB up to 128MB in
size. They are no longer used in current model digital cameras and have been difficult
to supply in recent times. They are almost obsolete.
Smoothing - Averaging pixels with their neighbors. It reduces contrast and simulates
an out-of-focus image.
Spot Metering - The camera's auto exposure system is focused on a very small area in
the centre of the viewfinder to critically adjust the overall exposure value ONLY for
that area.
see also: "Centre-weighted" and "Matrix metering"
SRF - Sony raw format filetype identifier. i.e. DSC00101.SRF
SSFDC - Solid State Floppy Disc Card - See "SmartMedia" above
Stitching - Combining a series of images to form a larger image or a panoramic photo.
Requires special graphic software.
SuperCCD: - Fujifilm's image sensor used in their line of digital cameras. For more
information, read their SuperCCD press release.
SVCD: - "Super Video Compact Disc"
A CD-ROM disc that contains high quality video and audio. Typically, a SVCD can
hold about 35~45 minutes (650MB) of video and stereo-quality audio (depends on the
data rate used for encoding). The video and audio are stored in MPEG-2 format, much
like a DVD. SVCD video has better quality than VHS video.
SVCD Video Parameter Settings
Frame Size: 480x480 (NTSC) or 480x576 (PAL)
Frame Rate: 29.97frames/second (NTSC) or 25 frames/second (PAL)
Video Data Rate: Variable bit rate up to 2600 kbps
Audio Settings: 32~384 kbps MPEG-1 Layer 2 audio bit rate
SVGA: - SuperVGA refers to an image resolution size of 800 x 600 pixels.
Telephoto: - The focal length that gives you the narrowest angle of coverage, good for
bringing distant objects closer.
TFT: - Refers to the type of hi-res colour LCD screen used in digital cameras. TFT =
Thin Film Transistor.
Thermal Dye Sublimation - please see Dye Sub
Thumbnail" - A small, low-resolution version of a larger image file that is used for
quick identification or speedy editing choices.
TIFF: - Tagged Image File Format - An uncompressed image file format that is
lossless and produces no artifacts as is common with other image formats such as JPG.
Time-Lapse: - Capturing a series of images at preset intervals. Also called Interval
Recording or Intervalometer.
Transreflective: - This is a type of LCD display that uses ambient light as well as a
backlight to illuminate the pixels. Can be seen easier in bright outdoor conditions.
True Colour: - Colour that has a depth of 24-bits per pixel and a total of 16.7 million
colours.
TTL: - Through the Lens, used when talking about either an autofocus or auto
exposure system that works through the camera's lens. It's also (incorrectly) used to
mean SLR, see "SLR" above.
TWAIN: - Protocol for exchanging information between applications and devices
such as scanners and digital cameras. TWAIN makes it possible for digital cameras and
software to "talk" with one another on PCs. The word TWAIN is the abbreviation of
"Technology Without An Industry Name."
Underexposure: - A picture that appears too dark because insufficient light was
delivered to the imaging system. Opposite of overexposure.
USB: - Universal Serial Bus - the data I/O port on most digital cameras and found on
modern PC and Mac computers. Faster than the serial port. Up to 12Mb/s with v1.1
interfaces.
USB 2.0: - The newest USB standard, close in throughput speed to FireWire now. Up
to 400Mb/s.
UV Filter: - This is an UltraViolet absorbing filter that helps overcome the abundance
of blue in outdoor photographs. Not really necessary in digital photography as the
camera's white balance system adjusts for the colour temperature of the scene. Can be
to protect the camera's lens from scratching, fingerprints or dirt.
UXGA: - Refers to an image resolution size of 1600 x 1200 pixels.
VCD - "Video Compact Disc"
A CD-ROM disc that contains video and audio. Typically, a VCD can hold about 74
minutes (650MB) of video and stereo-quality audio. The video and audio are stored in
MPEG-1 format and follow certain standards (White Book). VCD video quality is
roughly the same as VHS video.
VPS: Video Parameters Settings
Frame Size: 352x240 (NTSC) or 352x288 (PAL)
Frame Rate: 29.97 frames/second (NTSC) or 25 frames/second (PAL)
Video Data Rate: 1152 kbps
Audio Settings: Stereo, 44.1kHz and 224kbps audio bit rate
VGA: - Refers to an image resolution size of 640 x 480 pixels.
Video Out: - Means the digital camera has the ability to output its images on television
screens and monitors using either NTSC or PAL format.
Viewfinder: - The eye level device you look through to compose the image.
Vignetting - A term that describes the darkening of the outer edges of the image area
due to the use of a filter or add-on lens. Most noticeable when the zoom lens is in full
wide-angle.
White Balance - Refers to adjusting the relative brightness of the red, green and blue
components so that the brightest object in the image appears white. See also "AWB"
Wide angle - The focal length that gives you the widest angle of coverage.
X3 Image Sensor - Foveon's new image sensor for digital cameras that captures red,
green and blue data at every pixel. Read the X3 press release for full details.
xD-Picture Card - A new flash memory card standard that was co-developed by
Fujifilm and Olympus in mid-2002. Rumoured to be replacing SmartMedia which has
stalled at 128MB. xD is scheduled to go as large as 8GB in a form factor the size of a
postage stamp.
XGA: - Refers to an image resolution size of 1024 x 768 pixels.
ZLR: - Zoom Lens Reflex, a term coined by Olympus to describe their fixed mount
lens SLR type cameras. An SLR camera has interchangeable lenses, a ZLR has a non-
removeable zoom lens.
Zoom Lens: - A variable focal length lens. The most common on digital cameras has a
3:1 ratio (i.e. 35-105mm). See "3x" and "Focal Length"
 LONG QUIZ

CAMERA TERMINOLOGIES
Fill in the blanks:
Choose from among the words bellow. And identify the definition of terms. (2 pts. Each)
Zoom Lens / Wide angle / White Balance / VCD / Underexposure / TIFF / SLR / Shutter / Sepia
RGB / B&W / Aperture / AF / CMYK / Resolution / PPI / Pixel / MPEG / Macro / LED
LCD / JPEG / Gamma / Exposure / Byte

_______________ - Refers to adjusting the relative brightness of the red, green and blue
components so that the brightest object in the image appears white. See also "AWB"
_______________ - The focal length that gives you the widest angle of coverage.
_______________ - A variable focal length lens. The most common on digital cameras has a 3:1
ratio
_______________ - "Video Compact Disc" A CD-ROM disc that contains video and audio.
Typically, it can hold about 74 minutes (650MB) of video and stereo-quality audio.
_______________- A picture that appears too dark because insufficient light was delivered to the
imaging system. Opposite of overexposure.
_______________- Tagged Image File Format - An uncompressed image file format that is lossless
and produces no artifacts as is common with other image formats such as JPG.
_______________ - Single Lens Reflex - Means the camera has a viewfinder that sees through the
lens (TTL) by way of a 45°-angled mirror that flips up when the shutter fires and allows the light to
strike the image sensor.
_______________- The physical device that opens and closes to let light from the scene strike the
image sensor. digital cameras use both electronic and mechanical shutters.
_______________- The (brown) mono-toned images from the "bygone era" now often found as a
special image effect on some digital cameras.
_______________- Means Red, Green and Blue - the primary colours from which all other colours
are derived.
_______________- The quality of any digital image, whether printed or displayed on a screen,
depends in part on its resolution—the number of pixels used to create the image. More and smaller
pixels adds detail and sharpens edges.
_______________- Pixels Per Inch - A measurement to describe the size of a printed image. The
higher the number the more detailed the print will be.
_______________- The individual imaging element of a CCD or the individual output point of a
display device. This is what is meant by the figures 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960 and etc
when dealing with the resolution of a particular digital camera. Higher numbers are always better!!
_______________- Motion JPEG movie file. See "Movie clip"
_______________- The ability of a lens to focus very close for taking pictures of small objects at a
1:1 ratio.
_______________- Light Emitting Diode.
_______________- Liquid Crystal Display.
_______________- Joint Photographic Experts Group - The name of the committee that designed
the standard image compression algorithm.
_______________- A measure of the amount of contrast found in an image according to the
properties of a gradation curve. High contrast has high gamma and low contrast low gamma.
_______________- The amount of light that reaches the image sensor and is controlled by a
combination of the lens aperture and shutter speed.
_______________- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, black
_______________- An ensemble of eight bits of memory in a computer
_______________- Term used to mean black and white
_______________- The lens opening formed by the iris diaphragm inside the lens.
_______________- Auto Focus. A system that automatically focuses the camera lens.
 MODULE 2 (INFORMATION SHEET 2.1)

HISTORY OF CAMERA

Learning Objectives:
After reading this learner will know the origins of photography

Camera Obscura

An artist using an 18th-century camera obscura to trace an image

Photographic cameras were a development of the camera obscura, a device possibly dating back
to the ancient Chinese[1] and ancient Greeks,[2][3] which uses a pinhole or lens to project an image of
the scene outside upside-down onto a viewing surface.

An Arab physicist, Ibn al-Haytham, published his Book of Optics in 1021 AD. He created the first
pinhole camera after observing how light traveled through a window shutter. Ibn al-Haytham
realized that smaller holes would create sharper images. Ibn al-Haytham is also credited with
inventing the first camera obscura.[4]

On 24 January 1544 mathematician and instrument maker Reiners Gemma Frisius of Leuven
University used one to watch a solar eclipse, publishing a diagram of his method in De Radio
Astronimica et Geometrico in the following year.[5] In 1558 Giovanni Batista della Porta was the
first to recommend the method as an aid to drawing.[6]

Before the invention of photographic processes there was no way to preserve the images produced
by these cameras apart from manually tracing them. The earliest cameras were room-sized, with
space for one or more people inside; these gradually evolved into more and more compact models
such as that by Niépce's time portable handheld cameras suitable for photography were readily
available. The first camera that was small and portable enough to be practical for photography
was envisioned by Johann Zahn in 1685, though it would be almost 150 years before such an
application was possible.

Early fixed images

The first partially successful photograph of a camera image was made in approximately 1816 by
Nicéphore Niépce,[7][8] using a very small camera of his own making and a piece of paper coated
with silver chloride, which darkened where it was exposed to light. No means of removing the
remaining unaffected silver chloride was known to Niépce, so the photograph was not permanent,
eventually becoming entirely darkened by the overall exposure to light necessary for viewing it. In
the mid-1820s, Niépce used a sliding wooden box camera made by Parisian opticians Charles and
Vincent Chevalier to experiment with photography on surfaces thinly coated with Bitumen of
Judea.[9] The bitumen slowly hardened in the brightest areas of the image. The unhardened
bitumen was then dissolved away. One of those photographs has survived.

Daguerreotype camera made by Maison Susse Frères in 1839, with a lens by Charles Chevalier

Daguerreotypes and Calotypes

After Niépce's death in 1833, his partner Louis Daguerre continued to experiment and by 1837
had created the first practical photographic process, which he named the daguerreotype and
publicly unveiled in 1839.[10] Daguerre treated a silver-plated sheet of copper with iodine vapor to
give it a coating of light-sensitive silver iodide. After exposure in the camera, the image was
developed by mercury vapor and fixed with a strong solution of ordinary salt (sodium chloride).
Henry Fox Talbot perfected a different process, the calotype, in 1840. As commercialized, both
processes used very simple cameras consisting of two nested boxes. The rear box had a removable
ground glass screen and could slide in and out to adjust the focus. After focusing, the ground glass
was replaced with a light-tight holder containing the sensitized plate or paper and the lens was
capped. Then the photographer opened the front cover of the holder, uncapped the lens, and
counted off as many seconds—or minutes—as the lighting conditions seemed to require before
replacing the cap and closing the holder. Despite this mechanical simplicity, high-quality
achromatic lenses were standard.[11]

Late 19th century studio camera

Dry plates
Collodion dry plates had been available since 1855, thanks to the work of Désiré van
Monckhoven, but it was not until the invention of the gelatin dry plate in 1871 by Richard Leach
Maddox that the wet plate process could be rivaled in quality and speed. The 1878 discovery that
heat-ripening a gelatin emulsion greatly increased its sensitivity finally made so-called
"instantaneous" snapshot exposures practical. For the first time, a tripod or other support was no
longer an absolute necessity. With daylight and a fast plate or film, a small camera could be hand-
held while taking the picture. The ranks of amateur photographers swelled and informal "candid"
portraits became popular. There was a proliferation of camera designs, from single- and twin-lens
reflexes to large and bulky field cameras, simple box cameras, and even "detective cameras"
disguised as pocket watches, hats, or other objects.

The short exposure times that made candid photography possible also necessitated another
innovation, the mechanical shutter. The very first shutters were separate accessories, though built-
in shutters were common by the end of the 19th century.[11]

Kodak and the birth of film

Kodak No. 2 Brownie box camera, circa 1910

The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing
paper film in 1885 before switching to celluloid in 1888-1889. His first camera, which he called
the "Kodak," was first offered for sale in 1888. It was a very simple box camera with a fixed-focus
lens and single shutter speed, which along with its relatively low price appealed to the average
consumer. The Kodak came pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent
back to the factory for processing and reloading when the roll was finished. By the end of the 19th
century Eastman had expanded his lineup to several models including both box and folding
cameras.

In 1900, Eastman took mass-market photography one step further with the Brownie, a simple and
very inexpensive box camera that introduced the concept of the snapshot. The Brownie was
extremely popular and various models remained on sale until the 1960s.

Film also allowed the movie camera to develop from an expensive toy to a practical commercial
tool.
Despite the advances in low-cost photography made possible by Eastman, plate cameras still
offered higher-quality prints and remained popular well into the 20th century. To compete with
rollfilm cameras, which offered a larger number of exposures per loading, many inexpensive plate
cameras from this era were equipped with magazines to hold several plates at once. Special backs
for plate cameras allowing them to use film packs or rollfilm were also available, as were backs
that enabled rollfilm cameras to use plates.

Except for a few special types such as Schmidt cameras, most professional astrographs continued
to use plates until the end of the 20th century when electronic photography replaced them.

35 mm

Leica I, 1925

Argus C3, 1939

See also: History of 135 film

A number of manufacturers started to use 35mm film for still photography between 1905 and
1913. The first 35mm cameras available to the public, and reaching significant numbers in sales
were the Tourist Multiple, in 1913, and the Simplex, in 1914.[citation needed]

Oskar Barnack, who was in charge of research and development at Leitz, decided to investigate
using 35 mm cine film for still cameras while attempting to build a compact camera capable of
making high-quality enlargements. He built his prototype 35 mm camera (Ur-Leica) around 1913,
though further development was delayed for several years by World War I. It wasn't until after
World War I that Leica commercialized their first 35mm Cameras. Leitz test-marketed the design
between 1923 and 1924, receiving enough positive feedback that the camera was put into
production as the Leica I (for Leitz camera) in 1925. The Leica's immediate popularity spawned a
number of competitors, most notably the Contax (introduced in 1932), and cemented the position
of 35 mm as the format of choice for high-end compact cameras.

Kodak got into the market with the Retina I in 1934, which introduced the 135 cartridge used in
all modern 35 mm cameras. Although the Retina was comparatively inexpensive, 35 mm cameras
were still out of reach for most people and rollfilm remained the format of choice for mass-market
cameras. This changed in 1936 with the introduction of the inexpensive Argus A and to an even
greater extent in 1939 with the arrival of the immensely popular Argus C3. Although the cheapest
cameras still used rollfilm, 35 mm film had come to dominate the market by the time the C3 was
discontinued in 1966.

The fledgling Japanese camera industry began to take off in 1936 with the Canon 35 mm
rangefinder, an improved version of the 1933 Kwanon prototype. Japanese cameras would begin
to become popular in the West after Korean War veterans and soldiers stationed in Japan brought
them back to the United States and elsewhere.

TLRs and SLRs

See also: History of the single-lens reflex camera

A historic camera: the Contax S of 1949 — the first pentaprism SLR

Asahiflex IIb, 1954

Nikon F of 1959 — the first Japanese system camera

The first practical reflex camera was the Franke & Heidecke Rolleiflex medium format TLR of
1928. Though both single- and twin-lens reflex cameras had been available for decades, they were
too bulky to achieve much popularity. The Rolleiflex, however, was sufficiently compact to
achieve widespread popularity and the medium-format TLR design became popular for both high-
and low-end cameras.
A similar revolution in SLR design began in 1933 with the introduction of the Ihagee Exakta, a
compact SLR which used 127 rollfilm. This was followed three years later by the first Western
SLR to use 135 film, the Kine Exakta (World's first true 35mm SLR was Soviet "Sport" camera,
marketed several months before Kine Exakta, though "Sport" used its own film cartridge). The
35mm SLR design gained immediate popularity and there was an explosion of new models and
innovative features after World War II. There were also a few 35mm TLRs, the best-known of
which was the Contaflex of 1935, but for the most part these met with little success.

The first major post-war SLR innovation was the eye-level viewfinder, which first appeared on
the Hungarian Duflex in 1947 and was refined in 1948 with the Contax S, the first camera to use a
pentaprism. Prior to this, all SLRs were equipped with waist-level focusing screens. The Duflex
was also the first SLR with an instant-return mirror, which prevented the viewfinder from being
blacked out after each exposure. This same time period also saw the introduction of the
Hasselblad 1600F, which set the standard for medium format SLRs for decades.

In 1952 the Asahi Optical Company (which later became well known for its Pentax cameras)
introduced the first Japanese SLR using 135 film, the Asahiflex. Several other Japanese camera
makers also entered the SLR market in the 1950s, including Canon, Yashica, and Nikon. Nikon's
entry, the Nikon F, had a full line of interchangeable components and accessories and is generally
regarded as the first Japanese system camera. It was the F, along with the earlier S series of
rangefinder cameras, that helped establish Nikon's reputation as a maker of professional-quality
equipment.

Instant cameras

Polaroid Model J66, 1961

While conventional cameras were becoming more refined and sophisticated, an entirely new type
of camera appeared on the market in 1948. This was the Polaroid Model 95, the world's first
viable instant-picture camera. Known as a Land Camera after its inventor, Edwin Land, the Model
95 used a patented chemical process to produce finished positive prints from the exposed
negatives in under a minute. The Land Camera caught on despite its relatively high price and the
Polaroid lineup had expanded to dozens of models by the 1960s. The first Polaroid camera aimed
at the popular market, the Model 20 Swinger of 1965, was a huge success and remains one of the
top-selling cameras of all time.
Automation
The first camera to feature automatic exposure was the selenium light meter-equipped, fully
automatic Super Kodak Six-20 pack of 1938, but its extremely high price (for the time) of $225
($3782 in present terms[12]) kept it from achieving any degree of success. By the 1960s, however,
low-cost electronic components were commonplace and cameras equipped with light meters and
automatic exposure systems became increasingly widespread.

The next technological advance came in 1960, when the German Mec 16 SB subminiature became
the first camera to place the light meter behind the lens for more accurate metering. However,
through-the-lens metering ultimately became a feature more commonly found on SLRs than other
types of camera; the first SLR equipped with a TTL system was the Topcon RE Super of 1962.

Digital cameras
See also: Dslr § History

Digital cameras differ from their analog predecessors primarily in that they do not use film, but
capture and save photographs on digital memory cards or internal storage instead. Their low
operating costs have relegated chemical cameras to niche markets. Digital cameras now include
wireless communication capabilities (for example Wi-Fi or Bluetooth) to transfer, print or share
photos, and are commonly found on mobile phones.

Early development[edit]

The concept of digitizing images on scanners, and the concept of digitizing video signals, predate
the concept of making still pictures by digitizing signals from an array of discrete sensor elements.
Early spy satellites used the extremely complex and expensive method of de-orbit and airborne
retrieval of film canisters. Technology was pushed to skip these steps through the use of in-
satellite developing and electronic scanning of the film for direct transmission to the ground. The
amount of film was still a major limitation, and this was overcome and greatly simplified by the
push to develop an electronic image capturing array that could be used instead of film. The first
electronic imaging satellite was the KH-11 launched by the NRO in late 1976. It had a charge-
coupled device (CCD) array with a resolution of 800 x 800 pixels (0.64 megapixels).[13] At Philips
Labs in New York, Edward Stupp, Pieter Cath and Zsolt Szilagyi filed for a patent on "All Solid
State Radiation Imagers" on 6 September 1968 and constructed a flat-screen target for receiving
and storing an optical image on a matrix composed of an array of photodiodes connected to a
capacitor to form an array of two terminal devices connected in rows and columns. Their US
patent was granted on 10 November 1970.[14] Texas Instruments engineer Willis Adcock designed
a filmless camera that was not digital and applied for a patent in 1972, but it is not known whether
it was ever built.[15] The Cromemco CYCLOPS introduced as a hobbyist construction project in
1975[16] was the first digital camera to be interfaced to a microcomputer.

The first recorded attempt at building a self-contained digital camera was in 1975 by Steven
Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak.[17][18] It used the then-new solid-state CCD image sensor
chips developed by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973.[19] The camera weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg),
recorded black and white images to a compact cassette tape, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels
(10,000 pixels), and took 23 seconds to capture its first image in December 1975. The prototype
camera was a technical exercise, not intended for production.
Analog electronic cameras[edit]

Sony Mavica, 1981

Main article: Still video camera

Handheld electronic cameras, in the sense of a device meant to be carried and used like a
handheld film camera, appeared in 1981 with the demonstration of the Sony Mavica (Magnetic
Video Camera). This is not to be confused with the later cameras by Sony that also bore the
Mavica name. This was an analog camera, in that it recorded pixel signals continuously, as
videotape machines did, without converting them to discrete levels; it recorded television-like
signals to a 2 × 2 inch "video floppy".[20] In essence it was a video movie camera that recorded
single frames, 50 per disk in field mode and 25 per disk in frame mode. The image quality was
considered equal to that of then-current televisions.

Canon RC-701, 1986

Analog electronic cameras do not appear to have reached the market until 1986 with the Canon
RC-701. Canon demonstrated a prototype of this model at the 1984 Summer Olympics, printing
the images in the Yomiuri Shinbun, a Japanese newspaper. In the United States, the first
publication to use these cameras for real reportage was USA Today, in its coverage of World
Series baseball. Several factors held back the widespread adoption of analog cameras; the cost
(upwards of $20,000), poor image quality compared to film, and the lack of quality affordable
printers. Capturing and printing an image originally required access to equipment such as a frame
grabber, which was beyond the reach of the average consumer. The "video floppy" disks later had
several reader devices available for viewing on a screen, but were never standardized as a
computer drive.

The early adopters tended to be in the news media, where the cost was negated by the utility and
the ability to transmit images by telephone lines. The poor image quality was offset by the low
resolution of newspaper graphics. This capability to transmit images without a satellite link was
useful during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the first Gulf War in 1991.
US government agencies also took a strong interest in the still video concept, notably the US
Navy for use as a real time air-to-sea surveillance system.

The first analog electronic camera marketed to consumers may have been the Casio VS-101 in
1987. A notable analog camera produced the same year was the Nikon QV-1000C, designed as a
press camera and not offered for sale to general users, which sold only a few hundred units. It
recorded images in greyscale, and the quality in newspaper print was equal to film cameras. In
appearance it closely resembled a modern digital single-lens reflex camera. Images were stored on
video floppy disks.

Silicon Film, a proposed digital sensor cartridge for film cameras that would allow 35 mm
cameras to take digital photographs without modification was announced in late 1998. Silicon
Film was to work like a roll of 35 mm film, with a 1.3 megapixel sensor behind the lens and a
battery and storage unit fitting in the film holder in the camera. The product, which was never
released, became increasingly obsolete due to improvements in digital camera technology and
affordability. Silicon Films' parent company filed for bankruptcy in 2001.[21]

Arrival of true digital cameras

The first portable digital SLR camera, introduced by Minolta in 1995.

Nikon D1, 1999

By the late 1980s, the technology required to produce truly commercial digital cameras existed.
The first true portable digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was likely the
Fuji DS-1P of 1988, which recorded to a 2 MB SRAM memory card that used a battery to keep
the data in memory. This camera was never marketed to the public.

The first digital camera of any kind ever sold commercially was possibly the MegaVision Tessera
in 1987 [22] though there is not extensive documentation of its sale known. The first portable digital
camera that was actually marketed commercially was sold in December 1989 in Japan, the DS-X
by Fuji[23] The first commercially available portable digital camera in the United States was the
Dycam Model 1, first shipped in November 1990.[24] It was originally a commercial failure
because it was black and white, low in resolution, and cost nearly $1,000 (about $2000 in 2014).[25]
It later saw modest success when it was re-sold as the Logitech Fotoman in 1992. It used a CCD
image sensor, stored pictures digitally, and connected directly to a computer for download.[26][27][28]

In 1991, Kodak brought to market the Kodak DCS (Kodak Digital Camera System), the beginning
of a long line of professional Kodak DCS SLR cameras that were based in part on film bodies,
often Nikons. It used a 1.3 megapixel sensor, had a bulky external digital storage system and was
priced at $13,000. At the arrival of the Kodak DCS-200, the Kodak DCS was dubbed Kodak
DCS-100.

The move to digital formats was helped by the formation of the first JPEG and MPEG standards
in 1988, which allowed image and video files to be compressed for storage. The first consumer
camera with a liquid crystal display on the back was the Casio QV-10 developed by a team led by
Hiroyuki Suetaka in 1995. The first camera to use CompactFlash was the Kodak DC-25 in
1996.[citation needed]. The first camera that offered the ability to record video clips may have been the
Ricoh RDC-1 in 1995.

In 1995 Minolta introduced the RD-175, which was based on the Minolta 500si SLR with a
splitter and three independent CCDs. This combination delivered 1.75M pixels. The benefit of
using an SLR base was the ability to use any existing Minolta AF mount lens. 1999 saw the
introduction of the Nikon D1, a 2.74 megapixel camera that was the first digital SLR developed
entirely from the ground up by a major manufacturer, and at a cost of under $6,000 at introduction
was affordable by professional photographers and high-end consumers. This camera also used
Nikon F-mount lenses, which meant film photographers could use many of the same lenses they
already owned.

Digital camera sales continued to flourish, driven by technology advances. The digital market
segmented into different categories, Compact Digital Still Cameras, Bridge Cameras, Mirrorless
Compacts and Digital SLRs. One of the major technology advances was the development of
CMOS sensors, which helped drive sensor costs low enough to enable the widespread adoption of
camera phones.

Since 2003, digital cameras have outsold film cameras[29] and Kodak announced in January 2004
that they would no longer sell Kodak-branded film cameras in the developed world[30] - and 2012
filed for bankruptcy after struggling to adapt to the changing industry.[31] Smartphones now
routinely include high resolution digital cameras.
 LONG QUIZ

HISTORY OF CAMERA

1. Identification:

AL-HAYTHAM / CAMERA OBSCURA / KODAK BROWNIE /

CALOTYPE / COLLODION DRY PLATE / TLR / POLAROID /
LEICA / SLR / HASSELBLAD / ANALOG DIGITAL CAMERA /
DIGITAL SINGLE LENS REFLEX
Choose from among the words above. And identify the picture below. Add description
about the picture. See Sample.(50 pts.)

Al-Haytham– Published Book of Optics in 1021 AD

__________________________________

______________________________________________

_________________________________________________
 _______________________________________________

________________________________________________

_________________________________________________

___________________________________________________

___________________________________________________

___________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

____________________________________________________
 MODULE 3 (INFORMATION SHEET 3.1)

HISTORY OF PRINTING

Learning Objectives:
After reading this learner will know the origins of printing.

Woodblock printing (200)

Main article: Woodblock printing

Yuan Dynasty woodblocks edition of a Chinese play

Block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely
throughout East Asia both as a method of printing on textiles and later, under the
influence of Buddhism, on paper. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest
surviving examples from China date to about 220. Ukiyo-e is the best known type of
Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique on paper are
covered by the term woodcut (see below), except for the block-books produced mainly
in the fifteenth century.[1]

In China

Main article: History of printing in East Asia

The world's earliest printer printed fragments to survive are from China and are of silk
printed with flowers in three colours from the Han Dynasty (before AD 220).[2][page needed]
The technology of printing on cloth in China was adapted to paper under the influence
of Buddhism which mandated the circulation of standard translations over a wide area,
as well as the production of multiple copies of key texts for religious reasons. It
reached Europe, via the Islamic world, and by around 1400 was being used on paper
for old master prints and playing cards.[3][page needed][4][page needed] The oldest wood-block
printed book is the Diamond Sutra. It carries a date of 'the 13th day of the fourth moon
of the ninth year of the Xiantong era (i.e. 11 May 868).[5] A number of printed dhāraṇīs,
however, predate the Diamond Sūtra by about two hundred years (see Tang Dynasty).

In India

In Buddhism, great merit is thought to accrue from copying and preserving texts. The
fourth-century master listed the copying of scripture as the first of ten essential
religious practices. The importance of perpetuating texts is set out with special force in
the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra which not only urges the devout to hear, learn,
remember and study the text but to obtain a good copy and to preserve it. This ‘cult of
the book’ led to techniques for reproducing texts in great numbers, especially the short
prayers or charms known as dhāraṇīs. Stamps were carved for printing these prayers on
clay tablets from at least the seventh century, the date of the oldest surviving
examples.[6] Especially popular was the Pratītyasamutpāda Gāthā, a short verse text
summing up Nāgārjuna's philosophy of causal genesis or dependent origination.
Nagarjuna lived in the early centuries of the current era and the Buddhist Creed, as the
Gāthā is frequently called, was printed on clay tablets in huge numbers from the sixth
century. This tradition was transmitted to China and Tibet with Buddhism. Printing
text from woodblocks does not, however, seem to have been developed in India.

In Europe

Printing with a press was practiced in Christian Europe as a method for printing on
cloth, where it was common by 1300. Images printed on cloth for religious purposes
could be quite large and elaborate, and when paper became relatively easily available,
around 1400, the medium transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images
and playing cards printed on paper. These prints were produced in very large numbers
from about 1425 onwards.[7][page needed]

Around the mid-century, block-books, woodcut books with both text and images, usually
carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books
printed with movable type. These were all short heavily illustrated works, the
bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions: the Ars
moriendi and the Biblia pauperum were the most common. There is still some
controversy among scholars as to whether their introduction preceded or, the majority
view, followed the introduction of movable type, with the range of estimated dates
being between about 1440–1460.[8]

Stencil
Main article: Stencil

Stencils may have been used to color cloth for a very long time; the technique probably
reached its peak of sophistication in Katazome and other techniques used on silks for
clothes during the Edo period in Japan. In Europe, from about 1450 they were very
commonly used to colour old master prints printed in black and white, usually
woodcuts. This was especially the case with playing-cards, which continued to be
coloured by stencil long after most other subjects for prints were left in black and
white. Stenciling back in the 27th century BCE was different. They used color from
plants and flowers such as indigo (which extracts blue). Stencils were used for mass
publications, as the type didn't have to be hand-written.

Movable type (1040)

Main article: Movable type See also: History of typography in East Asia and History of Western
typography

European output of books printed by movable type from ca. 1450 to 1800[9]

Jikji, Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters, the earliest known book printed
with movable metal type, 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.

Korean moveable metal typeset form, used to print 月印千江之曲 in 1447.

A case of cast metal type pieces and typeset matter in a composing stick
The rapid spread of printing from Mainz in the 15th century

Movable type is the system of printing and typography using movable pieces of metal
type, made by casting from matrices struck by letterpunches.

Around 1040, the world's first known movable type system was created in China by Bi
Sheng out of porcelain. He also developed wooden movable type, but it was
abandoned in favour of clay movable types due to the presence of wood grains and the
unevenness of the wooden type after being soaked in ink.[10][11] Neither movable type
system was widely used, one reason being the enormous Chinese character set. Metal
movable type began to be used in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty (around 1230).[12]
Jikji was printed during the Goryeo Dynasty in 1377, it is the world's oldest extant
book printed with movable metal type.[13] This form of metal movable type was
described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as "extremely similar to
Gutenberg's".[14] East metal movable type may have spread to Europe between late
14th century and early 15th century.[15][16][17][18][19]

It is traditionally summarized that Johannes Gutenberg, of the German city of Mainz,

developed European movable type printing technology with the printing press around
1439[15] and in just over a decade, the European age of printing began. However, the
details show a more complex evolutionary process spread over multiple locations.[20]
Also, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer experimented with Gutenberg in Mainz.

Compared to woodblock printing, movable type page-setting was quicker and more
durable. The metal type pieces were more durable and the lettering was more uniform,
leading to typography and fonts. The high quality and relatively low price of the
Gutenberg Bible (1455) established the superiority of movable type, and printing
presses rapidly spread across Europe, leading up to the Renaissance, and later all
around the world. Today, practically all movable type printing ultimately derives from
Gutenberg's movable type printing, which is often regarded as the most important
invention of the second millennium.[21]

Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more
durable than previously used water-based inks. Having worked as a professional
goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a
craftsman. Gutenberg was also the first to make his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and
antimony, known as type metal, printer's lead, or printer's metal, which was critical for
producing durable type that produced high-quality printed books, and proved to be
more suitable for printing than the clay, wooden or bronze types used in East Asia. To
create these lead types, Gutenberg used what some considered his most ingenious
invention, a special matrix where with the moulding of new movable types with an
unprecedented precision at short notice became feasible. Within a year of printing the
Gutenberg Bible, Gutenberg also published the first coloured prints.
The invention of the printing press revolutionized communication and book
production leading to the spread of knowledge. Rapidly, printing spread from
Germany by emigrating German printers, but also by foreign apprentices returning
home. A printing press was built in Venice in 1469, and by 1500 the city had 417
printers. In 1470 Johann Heynlin set up a printing press in Paris. In 1473 Kasper
Straube published the Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474 in Kraków. Dirk Martens
set up a printing press in Aalst (Flanders) in 1473. He printed a book about the two
lovers of Enea Piccolomini who became Pope Pius II. In 1476 a printing press was set
up in England by William Caxton. The Italian Juan Pablos set up an imported press in
Mexico City in 1539. The first printing press in Southeast Asia was set up in the
Philippines by the Spanish in 1593. The Rev. Jose Glover intended to bring the first
printing press to England's American colonies in 1638, but died on the voyage, so his
widow, Elizabeth Harris Glover, established the printing house, which was run by
Stephen Day and became The Cambridge Press.[22]

The Gutenberg press was much more efficient than manual copying and still was
largely unchanged in the eras of John Baskerville and Giambattista Bodoni, over 300
years later.[23] By 1800, Lord Stanhope had constructed a press completely from cast
iron, reducing the force required by 90% while doubling the size of the printed area.[23]
While Stanhope's "mechanical theory" had improved the efficiency of the press, it still
was only capable of 250 sheets per hour.[23] German printer Friedrich Koenig would be
the first to design a non-manpowered machine—using steam.[23] Having moved to
London in 1804, Koenig met Thomas Bensley and secured financial support for his
project in 1807.[23] With a patent in 1810, Koenig designed a steam press "much like a
hand press connected to a steam engine."[23] The first production trial of this model
occurred in April 1811.
Flat-bed printing press

Main articles: Printing press and Spread of the printing press

Printing press from 1811, photographed in Munich, Germany.

A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting
upon a medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring an image. The systems
involved were first assembled in Germany by the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg in the
mid-15th century.[15] Printing methods based on Gutenberg's printing press spread
rapidly throughout first Europe and then the rest of the world, replacing most block
printing and making it the sole progenitor of modern movable type printing. As a
method of creating reproductions for mass consumption, The printing press has been
superseded by the advent of offset printing.

Johannes Gutenberg's work in the printing press began in approximately 1436 when he
partnered with Andreas Dritzehen—a man he had previously instructed in gem-
cutting—and Andreas Heilmann, owner of a paper mill.[15] It was not until a 1439
lawsuit against Gutenberg that official record exists; witnesses testimony discussed
type, an inventory of metals (including lead) and his type mold.[15]

Others in Europe were developing movable type at this time, including goldsmith
Procopius Waldfoghel of France and Laurens Janszoon Coster of the Netherlands.[15]
They are not known to have contributed specific advances to the printing press.[15]
While the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition had attributed the invention of
the printing press to Coster, the company now states that is incorrect.[24]
In this woodblock from 1568, the printer at left is removing a pagel from the press
while the one at right inks the text-blocks

Printing houses in Europe

Early printing houses (near the time of Gutenberg) were run by "master printers."
These printers owned shops, selected and edited manuscripts, determined the sizes of
print runs, sold the works they produced, raised capital and organized distribution.
Some master printing houses, like that of Aldus Manutius, became the cultural center
for literati such as Erasmus.

• Print shop apprentices: Apprentices, usually between the ages of 15 and 20,
worked for master printers. Apprentices were not required to be literate, and
literacy rates at the time were very low, in comparison to today. Apprentices
prepared ink, dampened sheets of paper, and assisted at the press. An apprentice
who wished to learn to become a compositor had to learn Latin and spend time
under the supervision of a journeyman.
• Journeyman printers: After completing their apprenticeships, journeyman printers
were free to move employers. This facilitated the spread of printing to areas that
were less print-centred.
• Compositors: Those who set the type for printing.
• Pressmen: the person who worked the press. This was physically labour-
intensive.

The earliest-known image of a European, Gutenberg-style print shop is the Dance of

Death by Matthias Huss, at Lyon, 1499. This image depicts a compositor standing at a
compositor's case being grabbed by a skeleton. The case is raised to facilitate his work.
At the right of the printing house a bookshop is shown.
Financial aspects

Court records from the city of Mainz document that Johannes Fust was, for some
time, Gutenberg's financial backer. By the sixteenth century jobs associated with
printing were becoming increasingly specialized. Structures supporting publishers were
more and more complex, leading to this division of labour. In Europe between 1500
and 1700 the role of the Master Printer was dying out and giving way to the
bookseller—publisher. Printing during this period had a stronger commercial
imperative than previously. Risks associated with the industry however were
substantial, although dependent on the nature of the publication.

Bookseller publishers negotiated at trade fairs and at print shops. Jobbing work
appeared in which printers did menial tasks in the beginning of their careers to support
themselves.

From 1500–1700 publishers developed several new methods of funding projects:

1. Cooperative associations/publication syndicates—a number of individuals

shared the risks associated with printing and shared in the profit. This was
pioneered by the French.[citation needed]
2. Subscription publishing—pioneered by the English in the early 17th
century.[citation needed] A prospectus for a publication was drawn up by a publisher to
raise funding. The prospectus was given to potential buyers who signed up for a
copy. If there were not enough subscriptions the publication did not go ahead.
Lists of subscribers were included in the books as endorsements. If enough
people subscribed a reprint might occur. Some authors used subscription
publication to bypass the publisher entirely.
3. Installment publishing—books were issued in parts until a complete book had
been issued. This was not necessarily done with a fixed time period. It was an
effective method of spreading cost over a period of time. It also allowed earlier
returns on investment to help cover production costs of subsequent
installments.

The Mechanick Exercises, by Joseph Moxon, in London, 1683, was said to be the first
publication done in installments.[citation needed]

Publishing trade organizations allowed publishers to organize business concerns

collectively. Systems of self-regulation occurred in these arrangements. For example, if
one publisher did something to irritate other publishers he would be controlled by peer
pressure. Such systems are known as cartels, and are in most countries now considered
to be in restraint of trade. These arrangements helped deal with labour unrest among
journeymen, who faced difficult working conditions. Brotherhoods predated unions,
without the formal regulations now associated with unions.
In most cases, publishers bought the copyright in a work from the author, and made
some arrangement about the possible profits. This required a substantial amount of
capital in addition to the capital for the physical equipment and staff. Alternatively, an
author who had sufficient money would sometimes keep the copyright himself, and
simply pay the printer for the production of the book.

Rotary printing press

Main article: Rotary printing press

A rotary printing press is a printing press in which the impressions are carved around a
cylinder so that the printing can be done on long continuous rolls of paper, cardboard,
plastic, or a large number of other substrates. Rotary drum printing was invented by
Richard March Hoe in 1843 and patented in 1847, and then significantly improved by
William Bullock in 1863.

Intaglio

Intaglio printing. The top line is the paper, to which a slightly raised layer of ink
adheres; the matrix is beneath
Main article: Intaglio (printmaking)

Intaglio /ɪnˈtæli.oʊ/ is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised

into a surface, known as the matrix or plate. Normally, copper or zinc plates are used
as a surface, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or
mezzotint. Collographs may also be printed as intaglio plates. To print an intaglio plate
the surface is covered in thick ink and then rubbed with tarlatan cloth to remove most
of the excess. The final smooth wipe is usually done by hand, sometimes with the aid
of newspaper or old public phone book pages, leaving ink only in the incisions. A
damp piece of paper is placed on top and the plate and paper are run through a
printing press that, through pressure, transfers the ink from the recesses of the plate to
the paper.

Lithography (1796)
Lithography press for printing maps in Munich.

stone used for a lithograph with a view of Princeton University (Collection: Princeton
University Library, NJ)
Main article: Lithography

Invented by Bavarian author Aloys Senefelder in 1796,[25] lithography is a method for

printing on a smooth surface. Lithography is a printing process that uses chemical
processes to create an image. For instance, the positive part of an image would be a
hydrophobic chemical, while the negative image would be water. Thus, when the plate
is introduced to a compatible ink and water mixture, the ink will adhere to the positive
image and the water will clean the negative image. This allows for a relatively flat print
plate which allows for much longer runs than the older physical methods of imaging
(e.g., embossing or engraving). High-volume lithography is used today to produce
posters, maps, books, newspapers, and packaging — just about any smooth, mass-
produced item with print and graphics on it. Most books, indeed all types of high-
volume text, are now printed using offset lithography.

In offset lithography, which depends on photographic processes, flexible aluminum,

polyester, mylar or paper printing plates are used in place of stone tablets. Modern
printing plates have a brushed or roughened texture and are covered with a
photosensitive emulsion. A photographic negative of the desired image is placed in
contact with the emulsion and the plate is exposed to ultraviolet light. After
development, the emulsion shows a reverse of the negative image, which is thus a
duplicate of the original (positive) image. The image on the plate emulsion can also be
created through direct laser imaging in a CTP (Computer-To-Plate) device called a
platesetter. The positive image is the emulsion that remains after imaging. For many
years, chemicals have been used to remove the non-image emulsion, but now plates are
available that do not require chemical processing.

Color printing

Main articles: Colour printing and Woodcut

Calvert Lithographic Company, Detroit, MI. Uncle Sam Supplying the World with Berry
Brothers Hard Oil Finish, c. 1880. Noel Wisdom Chromolithograph Collection, Special
Collections Department, The University of South Florida Tampa Library.

Chromolithography became the most successful of several methods of colour printing

developed by the 19th century; other methods were developed by printers such as
Jacob Christoph Le Blon, George Baxter and Edmund Evans, and mostly relied on
using several woodblocks with the colors. Hand-coloring also remained important;
elements of the official British Ordnance Survey maps were colored by hand by boys
until 1875. Chromolithography developed from lithography and the term covers
various types of lithography that are printed in color.[26] The initial technique involved
the use of multiple lithographic stones, one for each color, and was still extremely
expensive when done for the best quality results. Depending on the number of colors
present, a chromolithograph could take months to produce, by very skilled workers.
However much cheaper prints could be produced by simplifying both the number of
colors used, and the refinement of the detail in the image. Cheaper images, like the
advertisement illustrated, relied heavily on an initial black print (not always a
lithograph), on which colors were then overprinted. To make an expensive
reproduction print as what was once referred to as a "’chromo’", a lithographer, with a
finished painting in front of him, gradually created and corrected the many stones
using proofs to look as much as possible like the painting in front of him, sometimes
using dozens of layers.[27]

Aloys Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, introduced the subject of colored

lithography in his 1818 Vollstaendiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey (A Complete Course of
Lithography), where he told of his plans to print using color and explained the colors he
wished to be able to print someday.[28] Although Senefelder recorded plans for
chromolithography, printers in other countries, such as France and England, were also
trying to find a new way to print in color. Godefroy Engelmann of Mulhouse in France
was awarded a patent on chromolithography in July 1837,[28] but there are disputes over
whether chromolithography was already in use before this date, as some sources say,
pointing to areas of printing such as the production of playing cards.[28]

Offset press (1870s)

Main article: Offset press

Offset printing is a widely used printing technique where the inked image is transferred
(or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. When used
in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on the repulsion of oil
and water, the offset technique employs a flat (planographic) image carrier on which
the image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area
attracts a film of water, keeping the non-printing areas ink-free.

Screenprinting (1907)

Main article: Screenprinting

Screenprinting has its origins in simple stencilling, most notably of the Japanese form
(katazome), used who cut banana leaves and inserted ink through the design holes on
textiles, mostly for clothing. This was taken up in France. The modern screenprinting
process originated from patents taken out by Samuel Simon in 1907 in England. This
idea was then adopted in San Francisco, California, by John Pilsworth in 1914 who
used screenprinting to form multicolor prints in a subtractive mode, differing from
screenprinting as it is done today.

Flexography

Main article: Flexography

A flexographic printing plate.

Flexography (also called "surface printing"), often abbreviated to "flexo", is a method

of printing most commonly used for packaging (labels, tape, bags, boxes, banners, and
so on).
A flexo print is achieved by creating a mirrored master of the required image as a 3D
relief in a rubber or polymer material. A measured amount of ink is deposited upon the
surface of the printing plate (or printing cylinder) using an anilox roll. The print surface
then rotates, contacting the print material which transfers the ink.

Originally flexo printing was basic in quality. Labels requiring high quality have
generally been printed Offset until recently. In the last few years great advances have
been made to the quality of flexo printing presses.

The greatest advances though have been in the area of PhotoPolymer Printing Plates,
including improvements to the plate material and the method of plate creation. —
usually photographic exposure followed by chemical etch, though also by direct laser
engraving.

Photocopier (1960s)

Main article: Photocopier

Xerographic office photocopying was introduced by Xerox in the 1960s, and over the
following 20 years it gradually replaced copies made by Verifax, Photostat, carbon
paper, mimeograph machines, and other duplicating machines. The prevalence of its
use is one of the factors that prevented the development of the paperless office
heralded early in the digital revolution.

Thermal printer

Main article: Thermal printer

A thermal printer (or direct thermal printer) produces a printed image by selectively
heating coated thermochromic paper, or thermal paper as it is commonly known, when
the paper passes over the thermal print head. The coating turns black in the areas
where it is heated, producing an image.

Laser printer (1969)

Main article: Laser printer

The laser printer, based on a modified xerographic copier, was invented at Xerox in
1969 by researcher Gary Starkweather, who had a fully functional networked printer
system working by 1971.[29][30] Laser printing eventually became a multibillion-dollar
business for Xerox.

The first commercial implementation of a laser printer was the IBM model 3800 in
1976, used for high-volume printing of documents such as invoices and mailing labels.
It is often cited as "taking up a whole room," implying that it was a primitive version of
the later familiar device used with a personal computer. While large, it was designed for
an entirely different purpose. Many 3800s are still in use.

The first laser printer designed for use with an individual computer was released with
the Xerox Star 8010 in 1981. Although it was innovative, the Star was an expensive
($17,000) system that was only purchased by a small number of laboratories and
institutions. After personal computers became more widespread, the first laser printer
intended for a mass market was the HP LaserJet 8ppm, released in 1984, using a Canon
engine controlled by HP software. The HP LaserJet printer was quickly followed by
other laser printers from Brother Industries, IBM, and others.

Most noteworthy was the role the laser printer played in popularizing desktop
publishing with the introduction of the Apple LaserWriter for the Apple Macintosh,
along with Aldus PageMaker software, in 1985. With these products, users could create
documents that would previously have required professional typesetting.

Dot matrix printer (1970)

Main article: Dot matrix printing

A dot matrix printer or impact matrix printer refers to a type of computer printer with
a print head that runs back and forth on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-
soaked cloth ribbon against the paper, much like a typewriter. Unlike a typewriter or
daisy wheel printer, letters are drawn out of a dot matrix, and thus, varied fonts and
arbitrary graphics can be produced. Because the printing involves mechanical pressure,
these printers can create carbon copies and carbonless copies.

Each dot is produced by a tiny metal rod, also called a "wire" or "pin", which is driven
forward by the power of a tiny electromagnet or solenoid, either directly or through
small levers (pawls). Facing the ribbon and the paper is a small guide plate (often made
of an artificial jewel such as sapphire or ruby [2]) pierced with holes to serve as guides
for the pins. The moving portion of the printer is called the print head, and when
running the printer as a generic text device generally prints one line of text at a time.
Most dot matrix printers have a single vertical line of dot-making equipment on their
print heads; others have a few interleaved rows in order to improve dot density.

Inkjet printer

Main article: Inkjet printer

Inkjet printers are a type of computer printer that operates by propelling tiny droplets
of liquid ink onto paper.
Dye-sublimation printer

Main article: Dye-sublimation printer

A dye-sublimation printer (or dye-sub printer) is a computer printer which employs a

printing process that uses heat to transfer dye to a medium such as a plastic card,
printer paper or poster paper. The process is usually to lay one color at a time using a
ribbon that has color panels. Most dye-sublimation printers use CMYO colors which
differs from the more recognised CMYK colors in that the black dye is eliminated in
favour of a clear overcoating. This overcoating (which has numerous names depending
on the manufacturer) is effectively a thin laminate which protects the print from
discoloration from UV light and the air while also rendering the print water-resistant.
Many consumer and professional dye-sublimation printers are designed and used for
producing photographic prints.

Digital press (1993)

Main article: Digital printing

Digital printing is the reproduction of digital images on a physical surface, such as

common or photographic paper or paperboard-cover stock, film, cloth, plastic, vinyl,
magnets, labels etc.

It can be differentiated from litho, flexography, gravure or letterpress printing in many

ways, some of which are;

• Every impression made onto the paper can be different, as opposed to making
several hundred or thousand impressions of the same image from one set of
printing plates, as in traditional methods.
• The Ink or Toner does not absorb into the substrate, as does conventional ink,
but forms a layer on the surface and may be fused to the substrate by using an
inline fuser fluid with heat process (toner) or UV curing process (ink).
• It generally requires less waste in terms of chemicals used and paper wasted in
set up or makeready (bringing the image "up to color" and checking position).
• It is excellent for rapid prototyping, or small print runs which means that it is
more accessible to a wider range of designers and more cost effective in short
runs.
Frescography (1998)

With CAM-program created Frescography

Screenshot of a CAM program for designing frescographies.

Main article: Frescography

Frescography is a method for reproduction/creation of murals using digital printing

methods, invented in 1998 by Rainer Maria Latzke, and patented in 2000. The
frescography is based on digitally cut-out motifs which are stored in a database. CAM
software programs then allow to enter the measurements of a wall or ceiling to create a
mural design with low resolution motifs. Since architectural elements such as beams,
windows or doors can be integrated, the design will result in an accurately and tailor-fit
wall mural. Once a design is finished, the low resolution motifs are converted into the
original high resolution images and are printed on canvas by Wide-format printers. The
canvas then can be applied to the wall in a wall-paperhanging like procedure and will
then look like on-site created mural.

3D printing

Main article: 3D printing

Three-dimensional printing is a method of converting a virtual 3D model into a

physical object. 3D printing is a category of rapid prototyping technology. 3D printers
typically work by 'printing' successive layers on top of the previous to build up a three
dimensional object. 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use
than other additive fabrication technologies.[31]
Technological developments

Woodcut

Main article: Woodcut

Woodcut is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is

carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with
the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas
to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to
show in 'black' at the original surface level. The block is cut along the grain of the
wood (unlike wood engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). In Europe
beechwood was most commonly used; in Japan, a special type of cherry wood was
popular.

Woodcut first appeared in ancient China. From 6th century onward, woodcut icons
became popular and especially flourished in Chinese Buddhism. Since the 10th century,
woodcut pictures appeared as illustrations in Chinese books, on banknotes such as
Jiaozi (currency), and as single sheet images. Woodcut New Year pictures are also very
popular with the Chinese.

In China and Tibet printed images mostly remained tied as illustrations to

accompanying text until the modern period. The earliest woodblock printed book, the
Diamond Sutra contains a large image as frontispiece, and many Buddhist texts contain
some images. Later some notable Chinese artists designed woodcuts for books, the
individual print develop in China in the form of New Year picture as an art-form in the
way it did in Europe and Japan.

In Europe, woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing
about 1400, by using on paper existing techniques for printing on cloth. The explosion
of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and
many popular prints were very crude. The development of hatching followed on rather
later than in engraving. Michael Wolgemut was significant in making German woodcut
more sophisticated from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich was the first to use cross-
hatching (far harder to do than in engraving or etching). Both of these produced
mainly book-illustrations, as did various Italian artists who were also raising standards
there at the same period. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the
Western woodcut to a level that has never been surpassed, and greatly increased the
status of the single-leaf (i.e. an image sold separately) woodcut.
Engraving

Main article: Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting
grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold or
steel are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another
metal, for printing images on paper, which are called engravings. Engraving was a
historically important method of producing images on paper, both in artistic
printmaking, and also for commercial reproductions and illustrations for books and
magazines. It has long been replaced by photography in its commercial applications
and, partly because of the difficulty of learning the technique, is much less common in
printmaking, where it has been largely replaced by etching and other techniques. Other
terms often used for engravings are copper-plate engraving and Line engraving. These should
all mean exactly the same, but especially in the past were often used very loosely to
cover several printmaking techniques, so that many so-called engravings were in fact
produced by totally different techniques, such as etching.

In antiquity, the only engraving that could be carried out is evident in the shallow
grooves found in some jewellery after the beginning of the 1st Millennium B.C. The
majority of so-called engraved designs on ancient gold rings or other items were
produced by chasing or sometimes a combination of lost-wax casting and chasing.

In the European Middle Ages goldsmiths used engraving to decorate and inscribe
metalwork. It is thought that they began to print impressions of their designs to record
them. From this grew the engraving of copper printing plates to produce artistic
images on paper, known as old master prints in Germany in the 1430s. Italy soon
followed. Many early engravers came from a goldsmithing background. The first and
greatest period of the engraving was from about 1470 to 1530, with such masters as
Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, and Lucas van Leiden.

Etching

Main article: Etching

Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected
parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal (the original
process—in modern manufacturing other chemicals may be used on other types of
material). As an intaglio method of printmaking it is, along with engraving, the most
important technique for old master prints, and remains widely used today.
Halftoning

Main article: Halftone

Halftone is the reprographic technique that simulates ones it is continuous tone

imagery through the use of equally spaced dots of varying size.[32] 'Halftone' can also be
used to refer specifically to the image that is produced by this process.[32]

The idea of halftone printing originates from William Fox Talbot. In the early 1850s he
suggested using "photographic screens or veils" in connection with a photographic
intaglio process.[33]

Several different kinds of screens were proposed during the following decades, but the
first half-tone photo-engraving process was invented by Canadians George-Édouard
Desbarats and William Leggo Jr.[3] On October 30, 1869, Desbarats published the
Canadian Illustrated News which became the world's first periodical to successfully
employ this photo-mechanical technique; featuring a full page half-tone image of His
Royal Highness Prince Arthur, from a photograph by Notman.[4] Ambitious to exploit
a much larger circulation, Debarats and Leggo went to New York and launched the
New York Daily Graphic in March 1873, which became the world's first illustrated daily.

The first truly successful commercial method was patented by Frederic Ives of
Philadelphia in 1881.[33][34] But although he found a way of breaking up the image into
dots of varying sizes he did not make use of a screen. In 1882 the German George
Meisenbach patented a halftone process in England. His invention was based on the
previous ideas of Berchtold and Swan. He used single lined screens which were turned
during exposure to produce cross-lined effects. He was the first to achieve any
commercial success with relief halftones.[33]

Xerography

Main article: Xerography

Xerography (or electrophotography) is a photocopying technique developed by

Chester Carlson in 1938 and patented on October 6, 1942. He received U.S. Patent
2,297,691 for his invention. The name xerography came from the Greek radicals xeros
(dry) and graphos (writing), because there are no liquid chemicals involved in the
process, unlike earlier reproduction techniques like cyanotype.

In 1938 Bulgarian physicist Georgi Nadjakov found that when placed into electric field
and exposed to light, some dielectrics acquire permanent electric polarization in the
exposed areas.[5] That polarization persists in the dark and is destroyed in light.
Chester Carlson, the inventor of photocopying, was originally a patent attorney and
part-time researcher and inventor. His job at the patent office in New York required
him to make a large number of copies of important papers. Carlson, who was arthritic,
found this a painful and tedious process. This prompted him to conduct experiments
with photoconductivity. Carlson experimented with "electrophotography" in his
kitchen and in 1938, applied for a patent for the process. He made the first
"photocopy" using a zinc plate covered with sulfur. The words "10-22-38 Astoria"
were written on a microscope slide, which was placed on top of more sulfur and under
a bright light. After the slide was removed, a mirror image of the words remained.
Carlson tried to sell his invention to some companies, but because the process was still
underdeveloped he failed. At the time multiple copies were made using carbon paper
or duplicating machines and people did not feel the need for an electronic machine.
Between 1939 and 1944, Carlson was turned down by over 20 companies, including
IBM and GE, neither of which believed there was a significant market for copiers
 MODULE 4 (INFORMATION SHEET 4.1)

HISTORY OF RECORDING

Learning Objectives:
After reading this learner will know the origins of photography

Camera Obscura

Early Days: The Phonograph

Our story begins, as many do, with Thomas Edison. Before his invention of the phonograph in 1877, music
listeners could only listen to their favorite songs when someone else was playing them, whether in a concert hall
or at home. Music has been an important part of human culture since prehistoric times (some experts believe
music to have emerged 30,000 to 60,000 years ago), but the phonograph completely revolutionized its
consumption.

Before Edison’s invention (the second iteration of which is pictured above), some inventors had managed to
record music onto physical media, but 1877 saw the first machine that could both record music and play it back.
Sounds to be recorded were transmitted through a recording stylus, which would create indentations on a round
phonograph cylinder, and a playback stylus could read the recording and play it back through a diaphragm and
the iconic horn.

The phonograph cylinders themselves were interesting devices — Edison started with one that consisted of
tinfoil wrapped around a metal cylinder. Almost a decade later, a group of researchers and engineers that
included Alexander Graham Bell created a phonograph cylinder made of cardboard covered in wax that could
be engraved with recordings.

Around the same time, Edison created an all-wax cylinder that could be shaved down to record new sounds (this
cylinder could be considered the ultimate precursor to the CD-RW). And in 1889, pre-recorded cylinders hit the
market. Over time, the wax used for the cylinders was hardened, increasing the number of possible playbacks
from a dozen or so to around a hundred times.
In the 1890s, the transition to using flat-disc records began. The recording was etched onto a disc that would be
recognizable even today as a record. Interestingly, the dominance of the record over the phonograph cylinder
didn’t come down to audio fidelity: the main advantage of the disc record was that it could be more easily mass-
produced. By creating a master stamp, a number of records could be stamped in a short period of time, whereas
each phonograph cylinder had to be recorded individually, significantly slowing the process.

Discs were first released in a five-inch version, then in a seven-inch, a ten-inch, and finally a 12-inch version in
1903. Around this time, interest in double-sided records started to pick up, and Edison realized that the cylinder
was dying. He shortly switched to the Edison Disc Record (seen below), a 1/4-inch-thick piece of shellac that
could only be played on Edison Disc Phonographs.

Shellac, the standard material of the day, wouldn’t be replaced by vinyl, a lighter and more durable material,
until after World War II. After a decrease in sales during the war, record sales got a big boost, with more and
more families having phonographs with automatic record changers in their homes.

The transition to vinyl also coincided with the change of the industry standard from 78 rpm to 33 1/3 rpm,
which allowed a much larger amount of music to be recorded on a single disc. A 10-inch, 78 rpm disc (the most
popular size for a number of years) could only contain about three minutes of music, so long songs or
collections were often split across a number of discs, each of which was contained in a sleeve that was bound
into a book format with the other sleeves, leading to the term “record album.”

A 12-inch, vinyl, 33 rpm record, however, could contain around 20 minutes of music on each side, and this
longer-playing format began to dominate the market (it retained the “record album” moniker, as well as gained
the title “LP” for “long-playing”). 45 rpm records also increased in popularity after the war, with most
containing a single song on each side, earning them the name “singles.” Extended-play (EP) 45s were also
introduced, each of which could contain two songs on each side.

Beyond this point, the changes in record players were mainly in the hardware used to turn the disc and relay the
sound — belt- and direct-drive turntables, balanced tone arms, better styli, and so on. These innovations
continue today with brands like Gemini and Stanton. The now-discontinued Technics SL-1210 is on display at
the London Science Museum and described as one of the pieces of technology that have shaped the world we
live in.

Taking to the Air: Radio

Although radio technology had been around since the early 20th century, it wasn’t until later that music started
to hit the airwaves. The early history of music radio is murky, but a college radio station in the San Jose area is
purported to have broadcast music between 1912 and 1917, though it didn’t start broadcasting daily until later.

During World War I (as well as World War II), the US Congress suspended all amateur radio broadcasts,
meaning that many stations went off the air permanently. But 1XE of Medford, Massachusetts, was
broadcasting music in 1919, shortly after the end of the war, and in the following years, more music radio
stations began to pop up.

Unfortunately, they met with some resistance: many people believed that radio should only be used for two-way
communication, and a New York station was even shut down by a federal inspector who stated that “there is no
place on the ether for entertainment.” If only he could see the means by which we transmit music today.
Commercially licensed stations started appearing around this time as well — Pittsburgh’s KDKA is arguably the
first, with its inaugural broadcast of presidential election results in October 1920. After that, the popularity of
radio exploded: between 1920 and 1930, a reported 60% of American families purchased radio receivers, and
the number of families with radios more than doubled during the 30s, ushering in the golden age of radio
(usually characterized as lasting from the 20s to the 50s).

In the early days, music wasn’t the only thing broadcast on the radio — in fact, a number of stations only started
broadcasting music after they had been on the air for a time. News, sports scores, voting results, soap operas,
lectures, weather reports, comedians, political commentaries, and stories could all be heard on the airwaves.
Chicago’s KYW broadcast opera six days a week, and didn’t start broadcasting popular and classical music until
the opera season was over and more programming was required.

1922 saw the first appearance of something that would change the future of music broadcasting: the first radio
advertisement. One has to wonder how surprised the people at AT&T, the company who paid for the ad, would
be if they could see the future of advertising on Internet radio and streaming services. They probably had no
idea what they were starting.

Before it was considered acceptable to advertise on the radio, companies would sponsor musical programs,
which had names like Champion Spark Plug Hour, Acousticon Hour, and King Biscuit Time. Classical music
was often broadcast live, a practice that still survives on a very small scale today. Country music also became
more popular during the 1920s and 1930s, with a number of popular country shows being broadcast.
During this time, the standard format for radio stations was the full-service format, which saw the station
broadcasting not only music and other types of shows, but also news, weather reports, talk shows, and a wide
variety of other things of interest to the local public. This could be mixed with a network broadcast, much like is
done on public radio stations today.

The development of popular music is often attributed to the radio, and the rise of the top 40 stations in the early
50s has influenced how music radio operates even today. By allowing radio stations to run with less space,
equipment, and staff than full-service stations, top 40 stations quickly became the norm, especially after higher-
fidelity magnetic recording made it feasible to broadcast pre-recorded programs in the 1940s (before this, most
radio shows were broadcast live for better sound quality).

Another significant development in radio technology also took place around the middle of the century: the
invention of the transistor. After its invention in 1947, it was quickly integrated into radios, allowing them to be
made smaller and portable, instead of the large, stationary ones typically associated with the golden age of radio.
In the 60s and 70s, billions of these radios were built, making easily portable music a reality.

Taking It with You: The Tape

In 1958, RCA would change the future of home music consumption by introducing the RCA tape cartridge
(pictured to the right of a later compact cassette below). Before this cartridge, magnetic tape wasn’t a realistic
option for home use, as reel-to-reel players were too complicated for consumers, especially compared to record
players, which had been the de facto standard for home listening for several decades.
This was also the first time that acceptably high-quality audio had been encoded onto a magnetic tape medium
for home use. Although the RCA tape cartridge introduced the possibility of 60 minutes of high-quality home
listening on magnetic tape, it wouldn’t prove to be a success — it disappeared from shelves by 1964, largely due
to low sales of players caused by a hesitance on the part of retailers and hi-fi enthusiasts to adopt the
technology.

A number of competing systems tried to gain market dominance through magnetic tapes, but it wasn’t until
1964 that home audio would unite around a new format: the 8-track tape. Bill Lear, of the Lear Jet
Corporation, along with representatives from Ampex, Ford, General Motors, Motorola, and RCA worked
together to improve the technology that had been previously developed for the 4-track tape, which itself had
been an improvement on the 3-track model.

Other tape formats had already been available in the home market for a number of years, but the inclusion of 8-
track players in many cars of the 60s and 70s led it to become the dominant format of the day, despite its initial
46-minute play-time format.

By the late 60s, all of Ford’s cars were offered with an available 8-track player as an upgrade, and hundreds of
tapes were released, with the catalogue soon rivaling that of vinyl. And while other 8-track formats came and
went, the Lear tape held fast as the most dominant one. Although the reign of the 8-track was brief (it had been
supplanted by Phillips’ compact cassettes by the late 70s), it remains an iconic music storage method.
Once Phillips proved that their compact cassette tapes could carry high-fidelity musical content in the early
1970s, they began a quick rise to domination of the automobile music market. Their small size was a big count
in their favor, as smaller tape decks in cars and homes were advantageous — even soldiers in Vietnam
appreciated the smaller size and greater portability of the medium.

Once manufacturers started making smaller, portable tape decks, the cassette’s place in music had been
cemented. Portable stereos became more feasible than they had been when the 8-track was the standard format,
and adoption by the automobile industry ensured a quick rise in popularity.

An innovation possibly even more important than the cassette itself, however, was released by Sony in 1979:
the Walkman. The introduction of the tiny portable stereo tape player helped even more of the music-listening
public accept tapes as a viable home and personal music medium.

The Walkman, originally released as the Sound-About in the US, the Stowaway in the UK, and the Freestyle in
Sweden, fundamentally changed how people listened to music; no longer tied to large home record players or
large, inconvenient portable tape decks, listeners could easily take their music with them wherever they went.
And because the first Walkman included two headphone jacks, music could be enjoyed with a friend.
In 1983, cassettes outsold vinyl for the first time, largely thanks to the Walkman and similar devices from other
manufacturers. Continued innovation brought AM/FM radios, bass boost, rechargeable batteries, and auto-
reverse to the Walkman, which continued to present a sleek face throughout a large number of iterations
throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

The Walkman name is so iconic that it’s been used for a range of devices, from cassette players to CD players to
video MP3 players, and is still in use today.

The Digital Age: Compact Disc

Although digital recording had been happening since the late 1960s, it wasn’t until the early 1980s that the first
commercial compact discs (CDs) appeared. Although discs closely resembling the eventual format had been
demonstrated by companies in the 70s, the format of the CD was standardized in 1980, making it much easier
for manufacturers to get into the business.

Before the CD, magnetic tape data (or the track on a record) was read mechanically, with a sensor turning a
magnetic or physical pattern into an electrical signal. The use of a laser to read the data encoded on the disc was
a huge leap forward in audio technology — the laser was bounced off of the disc, and the reflections were read
by a sensor which transmitted an electrical signal.

In 1981, ABBA’s The Visitors became the first popular music album to be pressed to CD, which was quickly
followed by the first album to be released on CD, Billy Joel’s 52nd Street. Since then, musical releases have
almost always included a CD release, with the format dominating the market in the late 80s, through the 90s,
and into the early 2000s.

Error correction was built into CDs from very early on, one of the factors contributing to the format’s popularity
with audiophiles. Although diehard LP fans still praised vinyl (especially in America, where resistance to the
CD was a bit more entrenched than in Europe), the ability for a CD player to dampen the effect of a scratch or
fingerprint was a huge leap forward in audio technology.
And the skip protection introduced into later players would further enhance the listening experience by storing a
few seconds of music ahead of time so that playback would continue uninterrupted in the event of a skip.

By the late 80s, CDs had exploded in popularity, with the cost of CD players coming down and an increasingly
large number of artists converting their back catalogs to the new digital format. The 60-minute playtime of a CD
combined with the high audio quality offered, as well as the reading laser’s resistance to interference by dust or
other particles, made the CD the primary musical medium for the next decade, with home and portable players
quickly being adopted by listeners.

Although the CD has remained relatively unchanged in its lifetime, there were a number of slight changes to the
format through the years. In 1983, the first experiments with erasable discs were revealed, paving the way for
the later CD-RW (re-writeable), which superseded the CD-R (recordable) in the mid-90s. The cost of both the
CDs and recorders able to write to them fell quickly, making these discs, at least temporarily, ubiquitous.

CDs also made a big splash in the computer industry, with CD-ROMs (CD-read only memory) debuting in
1985. Further refinements led to the creation of the Video CD, Super Video CD, Photo CD, DVD, HD DVD,
and Blu-Ray discs.

The CD’s musical reign didn’t go unchallenged, though. In 1992, Sony announced the MiniDisc, a magneto-
optical storage medium that combined the storage systems of magnetic tapes and optical CDs. Sony hoped that
the smaller size and significantly better skip resistance would help the MiniDisc transcend the CD as the
musical medium of the day, but it was not to be.
A few audiophiles criticized the near-CD-quality audio, and the MiniDisc also suffered from a lack of players
and pre-recorded albums, the drastic fall of blank CD prices, and most notably, the emergence of MP3 music
players.

Although the MiniDisc did have some advantages over CDs, it suffered from poor timing, with the solid-state
revolution quickly making them obsolete. Sony stopped making MiniDisc Walkman players in 2011 and all
other MiniDisc players in 2013, totally killing off the medium (though some diehards still defend it).

Electronic Music’s Teething Years: The First MP3s

The history of MP3 is a fascinating one. It began in 1982, when Karlheinz Brandenburg was an electrical
engineering PhD student at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. His thesis advisor issued him
a challenge: find a way to transmit music over digital phone lines.

1986 saw the first real progress on the project, when more advanced technology was used to separate sounds
into three sections, or “layers,” each of which could be saved or discarded depending on its importance to the
overall sound. Brandenburg and his colleagues took advantage of a bit of a psychoacoustic phenomenon called
auditory masking to compress the file size of the recording.
Auditory masking is what happens when the human ear is unable to hear certain sounds; louder sounds or those
with lower frequencies can mask other sounds, meaning that the obscured sounds can be discarded from a
recording without a noticeable loss in quality. This led to the ability to encode files with decreased bitrates,
resulting in smaller files that retained an acceptable amount of the quality of the original sound.

The Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), a group tasked to create worldwide standards in audio recording,
was created by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in 1988. The standard that MPEG created
included Layers I, II, and III, the latter giving the highest quality at low bitrates.

Work on digital encoding continued, but ran into problems, with voices being recorded in very low fidelity.
After further experimentation with psychoacoustic models and data codecs — and a close call wherein the
encoding simply stopped working two days before submission of the codec — MPEG-1 Audio Layer III was
finalized in 1991.

MPEG-1 Audio Layer III (and MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, an improved format standardized in 1998) is a lossy
audio data compression format, meaning that every time the digital file is uncompressed and recompressed,
more information is lost. The compression algorithms for MP3 take advantage of limitations in human hearing
to discard sounds that are not well perceived — or not perceived at all — by the human ear, resulting in very
small music files compared to more robust lossless algorithms.

As the technology advanced, the encoding algorithms became more complex, allowing for things like average
and variable bitrate encoding, in which more complex parts of the audio are recorded at a higher bit rate than
less complex ones, resulting in higher-quality sound.
After realizing that this new format could be of great use to the growing Internet, Brandenburg and MPEG
decided on a file extension in 1995: .mp3. It was around this time that Brandenburg was asked a telling question
by an English entrepreneur: “Do you know that this will destroy the music industry?”

Looking back on this conversation, it seems likely that neither of them had any idea to what degree this would
be true. But it didn’t take long for it to become clear just how big of a shakeup this would case.

In the mid-90s, MP3 decoding software was cheap — WinAmp, one of the most widely downloaded Windows
programs of the era, was free (though it went to a freemium model where extras could be paid for). But
encoding software was expensive, and formed the center of the business model.

(If the image above makes you yearn for pre-iTunes days of digital music, try making a portable version of
WinAmp for a USB drive!)

Unfortunately for Fraunhofer and the music industry at large, an Australian student bought professional-grade
encoding software with a stolen credit card in 1997 and distributed the core of the software as freeware.
Brandenburg told NPR that it was in 1997 that he “got the impression that the avalanche was rolling and no one
could stop it anymore.”

The inevitable rise of peer-to-peer music sharing resulted in one of the most infamous companies of the Internet
age: Napster. Although it was only around for two years, the invention of Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and
Sean Parker shook up the music world like no other piece of software before or since. Napster was a simple, free
peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service; it wasn’t the first, but its focus on MP3 sharing catapulted it to almost 25
million verified users in February of 2001.

Although it was used by a wide variety of people, Napster is often associated with college students of the day; a
number of universities blocked the service from their networks, and those that didn’t reported huge amounts of
traffic — according to one 2000 article, some administrators reported between 40 and 61 percent of the traffic
from their college networks going to Napster.
Of course, this free distribution of music couldn’t last long before it was attacked by the music industry. The
first big attack on Napster came from thrash gods Metallica in 2000: after they discovered that their single “I
Disappear” had been leaked to Napster before it was released, and had even made it to radio, they filed a lawsuit
against the service under the Digital Media Copyright Act. Dr. Dre quickly followed suit (no pun intended). The
Recording Industry Association of America also filed a suit. As a result of these lawsuits, Napster shut down in
2001 and declared bankruptcy the following year.

Despite the attack and subsequent quick death of Napster, many other P2P file-sharing services sprung up. If
you were in your late teens or twenties in the early 2000s, you almost certainly remember LimeWire, Kazaa,
Madster, or Scour Exchange. It was not a good time for these services, and many of them were shut down with
similar lawsuits.

Of course, P2P music sharing still exists today, with BitTorrent being one of the most popular formats in use —
especially because of its decentralized format, which can’t easily be shut down. BitTorrent trackers, however,
which help users find each other and the files they’re looking for, can and have been targeted by lawsuits and
taken down.
By this point, MP3s had moved off of the computer and into listeners’ pockets. Different sources have different
opinions what the first MP3 player was, but Audio Highway’s Listen Up MP3 player, released in 1996, is a
good bet. The 1997 MPMan, released by Saehan Information Systems, followed close on its heels.

These were relatively rudimentary systems by today’s standards, holding six to twelve songs and displaying the
current song on a small screen. The Diamond Rio, Archos Jukebox, Creative Nomad Jukebox, and a few others
were released in the following years, but the market destroyer was yet to come: the Apple iPod, in 2001.

The first generation iPod was a monster, containing a 5 GB hard drive that held up to 1,000 songs and selling
for $400 (interestingly, the first phone with MP3 capabilities, the Samsung SPH-M100, was launched the year
before, in 2000). The mechanical scroll wheel and five-button layout became synonymous with MP3 players
very quickly due to the iPod’s popularity; its small size helped catapult it to the forefront of the MP3 player
scene.

Over the next 14 years, continuing through to today, the iPod has gone through a large number of iterations, and
seeing a significant decrease in size and weight, the introduction of touch-control scroll wheels, color screens,
and a huge jump in available storage; the final iPod Classic (as it was called) had 160 GB of storage, 32 times
that of the original.

In the years after the release of the first iPod, we’d see the release of a number of other models, including the
iPod Mini, iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch. Other significant MP3 players would be released during
the reign of the iPod, but none have come close to eclipsing the market dominance of Apple’s sleek little player.
The Siri personal assistant, Retina display technology, cameras, video recording, voice control, Bluetooth, and
Wi-Fi connectivity were all added over the years, continuing Apple’s history of innovation. In September 2012,
Apple reported that 350 million iPods had been sold worldwide.

Of course, where goes the iPod, so goes iTunes. It’s no surprise that iTunes debuted in 2001 alongside the iPod
as “the world’s best and easiest to use ‘jukebox’ software.” More important was the release in 2003 of iTunes 4,
which included the iTunes Music Store, Apple’s entry into the music sales business.

The ability to purchase a song or an entire album with a single click was obviously very appealing to users, and
has remained so — iTunes has been the single largest distributor of music in the United States since 2008, and
the largest in the world since 2010, despite some backlash over digital rights management and a few legal
disputes.

Despite the technological superiority and overall popularity of the MP3 format, the iTunes Store doesn’t use this
encoding; the songs sold are now encoded in Advanced Audio coding (AAC) format, which was standardized in
1997 and intended to be the successor to MP3. With more advanced encoding, higher quality at similar bit rates,
and more flexibility, AAC is a superior format. Although MP3 is still prevalent, AAC has more industry
support, and will likely completely replace MP3 in the near future.
The Future
So if streaming loses the crown as the most widely used form of music listening, what will take its place? To put
it simply, I have no idea. When I was pondering this question a few days ago, I thought that music technology
could advance so drastically within the next five or ten years that we wouldn’t even be listening to artists
anymore.

We’d plug ourselves into machines that would take our tastes and procedurally generate new music that would
perfectly fit what we like in our music libraries, much like video games are using procedural generation. While
some people are experimenting with procedural music, it doesn’t look like anyone has tried to take that next step
into complete customization.

Of course, there have been some big changes; music has been affected by the way in which we consume it, and
the way in which we consume music has been a strong defining force — the change from the gramophone to the
tape, the advance from the CD to the MP3, have been notable technological paradigm shifts in human history.

The future of music consumption is a question mark at the moment — further algorithmic control looks likely,
but the exact degree to which it will come to rule our listening experience remains unknown. And regression
back to full control certainly isn’t out of the question. The only sure thing is that music — in one form or
another — will be with us forever, whether we go back to listening to vinyl on home players or we find a way to
implant individualized algorithmic composers and players directly into our brains.

From the gramophone to the FM radio, from the Walkman to the MP3 player, from the anarchy of Napster to
the algorithmic rule of Pandora, the systems through which we relate to music today only bear a passing
resemblance to the ways we listened 100 years ago. And yet, we still listen. Whether music is part of what
makes us human, an evolutionary quirk, an escape mechanism, or a distinctly advanced way of relating to our
environment, it’s here to stay. And we’ll continue to innovate, challenge, and completely change the ways in
which we consume it.
 MODULE 5 (INFORMATION SHEET 5.1)

LITERARY GENRES

Learning Objectives:
After reading this learner will know the different genres of the Literary Arts.

A Literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined

by literary technique, tone, content, or even (as in the case of fiction) length. The
distinctions between genres and categories are flexible and loosely defined, often with
subgroups.

1. Poetry
1.1 Poem is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic[1][2][3] qualities
oflanguage—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke
meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.
Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems
evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics,
as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and
the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the
uses of speech in rhetoric,drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on
features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme, and emphasized the aesthetics which
distinguish poetry from more objectively informative, prosaic forms of writing. From
the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a
fundamental creative act employing language.
Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to
evoke emotive responses. Devices such
as assonance,alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to
achieve musicalor incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and
otherstylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple
interpretations. Similarly figures of speech such
as metaphor, simile andmetonymy[4] create a resonance between otherwise disparate
images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived.
Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of
rhyme or rhythm.
Some poetry types are specific to particular cultures and genres and respond to
characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Readers accustomed to
identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as written
in lines based on rhyme and regular meter; there are, however, traditions, such
as Biblical poetry, that use other means to create rhythm and euphony. Much modern
poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition,[5] playing with and testing, among other
things, the principle of euphony itself, sometimes altogether forgoing rhyme or set
rhythm.[6][7] In today's increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and
techniques from diverse cultures and languages
1.2 Sonnet is a poetic form which originated in Italy; Giacomo Da Lentini is credited
with its invention.
The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto (from Old Provençalsonet a little
poem, from son song, from Latin sonus a sound). By the thirteenth century it signified a
poem of fourteen lines that follows a strictrhyme scheme and specific structure.
Conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its history. Writers of
sonnets are sometimes called "sonneteers", although the term can be used derisively.
1.3 Ballad /ˈbæləd/ is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive
from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dancing
songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of the
British Isles from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively
across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa.
Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often
used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads.
In the later 19th century the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love
song and is now often used for any love song, particularly the pop orrock sentimental
ballad.
1.4 Pastoral is a mode of literature in which the author employs various techniques to
place the complex life into a simple one. Paul Alpers distinguishes pastoral as a mode
rather than a genre, and he bases this distinction on the recurring attitude of power;
that is to say that pastoral literature holds a humble perspective toward nature. Thus,
pastoral as a mode occurs in many types of literature (poetry, drama, etc.) as well as
genres (most notably the pastoral elegy).

1.5 Lyrics are words that make up a song usually consisting of verses and choruses.
The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as
an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, as a "librettist".
The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost
unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation,meter,
and symmetry of expression.
1.6 Song - most broadly, is a single (and often standalone) work of music. More
narrowly, a song is intended to be sung by the human voice with distinct and fixed
pitches and patterns using sound and silence and a variety of forms that often include
the repetition of sections. Written words created specifically for music or for which
music is specifically created, are called lyrics. If a pre-existing poem is set to composed
music in classical music it is an art song. Songs that are sung on repeated pitches
without distinct contours and patterns that rise and fall are called chants. Songs in a
simple style that are learned informally are often referred to as folk songs. Songs that
are composed for professional singers are called popular songs. These songs, which
have broad appeal, are often composed by professional songwriters, composers and
lyricists. Art songs are composed by trained classical composers for concert
performances. Songs are performed live and recorded. Songs may also appear in
plays, musical theatre, stage shows of any form, and within operas.

2. Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.[1] The term comes
from a Greek word meaning "action" (Classical Greek: δρᾶμα, drama), which is derived
from "to do" (Classical Greek: δράω, drao). The two masks associated with drama
represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are
symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene. Thalia was the Muse of
comedy (the laughing face), while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy (the weeping
face). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been
contrasted with the epic and thelyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335
BCE)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.[2]
The term is also a synonym for play. A "restricted usage" of "drama", in a narrow sense
to designate a specific type of play, originated with
Frenchmen Diderot and Beaumarchais in the 18th century. Drama in this sense refers
to a "serious play, not necessarily a tragedy".[3] It is this narrow sense that
the film and television industry and film studies adopted to describe "drama" as
a genre within their respective media.[4] "Radio drama" has been used in both senses—
originally transmitted in a live performance, it has also been used to describe the more
high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio.[5]
The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience,
presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception.
The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced
by this collaborative production and collective reception.[6] The early
modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) byShakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus
the King (c. 429 BCE) by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama.[7] A
modern example is Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill (1956).[8]
Drama is often combined with music and dance: the drama in opera is generally sung
throughout; musicals generally include both spoken dialogue and songs; and some
forms of drama have incidental music or musical accompaniment underscoring the
dialogue (melodrama and Japanese Nō, for example).[9] In certain periods of history
(the ancient Romanand modern Romantic) some dramas have been written to
be read rather than performed.[10] In improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the
moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an
audience.[11]
2.1 Comedy (from the Greek: κωμῳδία, kōmōidía) refers to any discourse or work
generally intended to be humorous or amusing by inducinglaughter, especially
in theatre, television, film, and stand-up comedy. The origins of the term are found
in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was
influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poetsat the theaters.[1] The
theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance which
pits two groups or societies against each other in an amusing agon or
conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and
a "Society of the Old".[2] A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a
struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose
obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth is understood to be constrained by
his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse in ruses
which engender very dramatic irony which provokes laughter.

2.2 Tragedy (from the Greek: τραγῳδία, tragōidia[a]) is a form of drama based on
human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in
audiences.[2][3] While many cultures have developed forms that provoke
thisparadoxical response, the term tragedy often refers to a specific tradition of drama
that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition
of Western civilization.[2][4] That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the
term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect ofcultural identity and historical
continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural
form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it.
2.3 Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comicforms.
Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can variously describe either a tragic
play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious
play with a happy ending
2.4 Farce is a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are
highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable.[1] Farces are often highly
incomprehensible plot-wise (due to the many plot twists and random events that
occur), but viewers are encouraged not to try to follow the plot in order to avoid
becoming confused and overwhelmed. Farce is also characterized by physical humor,
the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances. Farces
have been written for the stage and film. Furthermore, a farce is also often set in one
particular location, where all events occur.

2.5 Melodrama is a dramatic or literary work in which the plot, which is typically
sensational and designed to appeal strongly to the emotions, takes precedence over
detailed characterization. Characters are often simply drawn, and may
appear stereotyped.
In scholarly and historical musical contexts, melodramas are dramas of the 18th and 19th
centuries in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The
term is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels,
movies, and television and radio broadcasts. In modern contexts, the term
"melodrama" is generally pejorative,[1] as it suggests that the work in question lacks
subtlety, character development, or both. By extension, language or behavior which
resembles melodrama is often calledmelodramatic; this use is nearly always pejorative.
2.6 Pantomime (informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production,
designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is still performed
there, generally during the Christmas and New Year season and, to a lesser extent, in
other English-speaking countries. Modern pantomime includes songs, slapstick
comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines topical humour
with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale.[1] It is a
participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with
certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.
Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical
theatre, and it developed partly from the 16th century commedia dell'arte tradition of
Italy, as well as other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-
centurymasques and music hall.[1] An important part of the pantomime, until the late
19th century, was the harlequinade.[2]
Outside Britain the word "pantomime" is usually used to mean miming, rather than
the theatrical form discussed here
 3. Prose
Prose is a form of language that exhibits a grammatical structure and anatural flow of
speech, rather than a rhythmic structure as in traditional poetry. Where the common
unit of verse is based on meter or rhyme, the common unit of prose is purely
grammatical, such as a sentence or paragraph
3.1 Fiction is the classification for any story created by the imagination and, therefore,
not based strictly on history or fact.[1][2][3][note 1] Fiction can be expressed in a variety of
formats, including writings, live performances, films, television programs, video games,
and role-playing games, though the term originally and most commonly refers to the
major narrative forms of literature (see literary fiction),[4] including
thenovel, novella, short story, and play. Fiction constitutes an act of creative invention,
so that faithfulness to reality is not typically assumed;[5] in other words, fiction is not
expected to present only characters who are actual people or descriptions that are
factually true. The context of fiction is generally open to interpretation, due to fiction's
freedom from any necessary embedding in reality;[6] however, some fictional works are
claimed to be, or marketed as, historically or factually accurate, complicating the
traditional distinction between fiction and non-fiction.[7] Fiction is a classification or
category, rather than a specific mode or genre, unless used in a narrower sense as
a synonym for a particular literary fiction form.

3.1.1 Novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters
and events, usually in the form of a sequential story.
The genre has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive
history of about two thousand years".[1] This view sees the novel's origins in Classical
Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, and the tradition of the novella.
The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic
English term in the 18th century. Ian Watt, however, in The Rise of the Novel (1957)
suggests that the novel first came into being in the early 18th century,
3.1.2 Short Story is a piece of prose fiction, which can be read in one sitting. Emerging
from earlier oral storytelling traditions in the 17th century, the short story has grown to
encompass a body of work so diverse as to defy easy characterization. At its most
prototypical the short story features a small cast of named characters, and focuses on a
self-contained incident with the intent of evoking a "single effect" or mood.[1] In doing
so, short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components to a far
greater degree than is typical of an anecdote, yet to a far lesser degree than a novel.
While the short story is largely distinct from the novel, authors of both generally draw
from a common pool of literary techniques.
Short stories have no set length. In terms of word count there is no official
demarcation between an anecdote, a short story, and a novel. Rather, the form's
parameters are given by the rhetorical and practical context in which a given story is
produced and considered, so that what constitutes a short story may differ between
genres, countries, eras, and commentators.[2] Like the novel, the short story's
predominant shape reflects the demands of the available markets for publication, and
the evolution of the form seems closely tied to the evolution of the publishing industry
and the submission guidelines of its constituent houses.[3]
The short story has been considered both an apprenticeship form preceding more
lengthy works, and a crafted form in its own right, collected together in books of
similar length, price, and distribution as novels. Short story writers may define their
works as part of the artistic and personal expression of the form. They may also
attempt to resist categorization by genre and fixed formation.
3.1.3 Myth is a traditional or legendary story, collection or study. It is derived from
the Greek word mythos (μῦθος), which simply means "story". Mythology can refer
either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths.[3] A myth also can be
a story to explain why something exists.
Human cultures usually include a cosmogonical or creation myth, concerning the
origins of the world, or how the world came to exist. The active beings in myths are
generally gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, or animals and plants. Most myths
are set in a timeless past before recorded time or beginning of the critical history. A
myth can be a story involving symbols that are capable of multiple meanings.
A myth is a sacred narrative because it holds religious or spiritual significance for those
who tell it. Myths also contribute to and express a culture's systems of thought and
values.
3.1.4 Legend (Latin, legenda, "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions that
are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and values
to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and
passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility"
but which may include miracles. Legends may be transformed over time, in order to
keep it fresh and vital, and realistic. Many legends operate within the realm of
uncertainty, never being entirely believed by the participants, but also never being
resolutely doubted

3.1.5 Tale / Fairy Tale (pronounced /ˈfeəriˌteɪl/) is a type of short story that
typically featuresfolkloric fantasy characters, such
as dwarves, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes,goblins, mermaids, trolls, unicorns, or witches,
and usually magic or enchantments. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk
narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events
described)[1] and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables. The term is mainly used
for stories with origins in European tradition and, at least in recent centuries, mostly
relates to children's literature.
In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with
unusual happiness, as in "fairy tale ending" (a happy ending)[2] or "fairy taleromance"
(though not all fairy tales end happily). Colloquially, a "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can
also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale; it is used especially of any story that not
only is not true, but could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived as real; fairy tales
may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as
being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legendsand epics, they usually do
not contain more than superficial references to religionand actual places, people, and
events; they take place once upon a time rather than in actual times.[3]
Fairy tales are found in oral and in literary form; the name "fairy tale" was first ascribed
to them by Madame d'Aulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of today's fairy tales have
evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple
cultures around the world.[4] The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace
because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities
in Durham and Lisbon, such stories may date back thousands of years, some to the
Bronze Age more than 6,000 years ago.[5] Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy
tales, are still written today.
Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. The Aarne-Thompson
classification system and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the
most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school
has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales.

3.2 Nonfiction or non-fiction is content (often, in the form of a story) whose creator,
in good faith, assumes responsibility for the truth or accuracy of the events, people,
and/or information presented.[1] In contrast, a story whose creator explicitly leaves
open if and how the work refers to reality is usually classified as fiction.[1][2] Nonfiction,
which may be presented either objectively or subjectively, is traditionally one of the
two main divisions of narratives (and, specifically, prosewriting),[3] the other traditional
division being fiction, which contrasts with nonfiction by dealing in information,
events, and characters expected to be partly or largely imaginary.
Nonfiction's specific factual assertions and descriptions may or may not be accurate,
and can give either a true or a falseaccount of the subject in question. However,
authors of such accounts genuinely believe or claim them to be truthful at the time of
their composition or, at least, pose them to a convinced audience
as historically or empirically factual. Reporting thebeliefs of others in a nonfiction
format is not necessarily an endorsement of the ultimate veracity of those beliefs, it is
simply saying it is true that people believe them (for such topics as mythology).
Nonfiction can also be written about fiction, typically known as literary criticism, giving
information and analysis on these other works. Nonfiction need not necessarily be
written text, since pictures and film can also purport to present a factual account of a
subject.
3.2.1 Diary (sometimes referred to as journal or notebook) is a record (originally in
handwritten format) with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has
happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a
person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current
events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone who keeps a diary is known as
a diarist. Diaries undertaken for institutional purposes play a role in many aspects of
human civilization, including government records (e.g. Hansard), business ledgers and
military records. In British English, the word may also denotea preprinted journal
format.
Today the term is generally employed for personal diaries, normally intended to remain
private or to have a limited circulation amongst friends or relatives. The word "journal"
may be sometimes used for "diary," but generally a diary has (or intends to have) daily
entries, whereas journal-writing can be less frequent.
3.2.2 Biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves
more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays
a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé),
a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life,
including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's
personality.
Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a
person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing.
Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genreknown as biography.
3.2.3 Essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument —
but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of an article, a pamphlet, and ashort
story. Essays have traditionally been sub-classified as formal and informal. Formal
essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length,"
whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation,
individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling
structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc
3.2.4 Public speaking (sometimes termed oratory ororation) is the process or act of
performing a presentation (a speech) focused around an individual direct speech to a
live audience in a structured, deliberate manner in order to inform, influence, or
entertain them. Public speaking is commonly understood as the formal, face-to-face
talking of a single person to a group of listeners. It is closely allied to "presenting",
although the latter is more often associated with commercial activity. Most of the time,
public speaking is to persuade the audience.

3.2.5 Autobiography (from the Greek, αὐτός-autos self + βίος-bios life + γράφειν-
graphein to write) is a written account of the life of a person written by that person. In
other words, it is the story that a person wrote about themselves.
 MODULE 6 (INFORMATION SHEET 6.1)

MUSIC GENRES

Learning Objectives:
After reading this learner will know the different genres of the Music.
LIST OF TYPE OF MUSIC | MUSIC GENRES
• Alternative
 Art Punk
 Alternative Rock
 College Rock
 Crossover Thrash (thx Kevin G)
 Crust Punk (thx Haug)
 Experimental Rock
 Folk Punk
 Goth / Gothic Rock
 Grunge
 Hardcore Punk
 Hard Rock
 Indie Rock
 Lo-fi (hat tip to Ben Vee Bedlamite)
 New Wave
 Progressive Rock
 Punk
 Shoegaze (with thx to Jackie Herrera)
 Steampunk (with thx to Christopher Schaeffer)
• Anime
• Blues
 Acoustic Blues
 Chicago Blues
 Classic Blues
 Contemporary Blues
 Country Blues
 Delta Blues
 Electric Blues
 Ragtime Blues (cheers GFS)
• Children’s Music
 Lullabies
 Sing-Along
 Stories
• Classical
 Avant-Garde
 Baroque
  Chamber Music
 Chant
 Choral
 Classical Crossover
 Contemporary Classical (thx Julien Palliere)
 Early Music
 Expressionist (thx Mr. Palliere)
 High Classical
 Impressionist
 Medieval
 Minimalism
 Modern Composition
 Opera
 Orchestral
 Renaissance
 Romantic (early period)
 Romantic (later period)
 Wedding Music
• Comedy
 Novelty
 Standup Comedy
 Vaudeville (cheers Ben Vee Bedlamite)
• Commercial (thank you Sheldon Reynolds)
 Jingles
 TV Themes
• Country
 Alternative Country
 Americana
 Bluegrass
 Contemporary Bluegrass
 Contemporary Country
 Country Gospel
 Country Pop (thanks Sarah Johnson)
 Honky Tonk
 Outlaw Country
 Traditional Bluegrass
 Traditional Country
 Urban Cowboy
• Dance (EDM – Electronic Dance Music – see Electronic below – with thx to
Eric Shaffer-Whiting & Drew :-))
 Club / Club Dance (thx Luke Allfree)
 Breakcore
 Breakbeat / Breakstep
 Brostep (cheers Tom Berckley)
  Chillstep (thx Matt)
 Deep House (cheers Venus Pang)
 Dubstep
 Electro House (thx Luke Allfree)
 Electroswing
 Exercise
 Future Garage (thx Ran’dom Haug)
 Garage
 Glitch Hop (cheers Tom Berckley)
 Glitch Pop (thx Ran’dom Haug)
 Grime (thx Ran’dom Haug / Matthew H)
 Hardcore
 Hard Dance
 Hi-NRG / Eurodance
 Horrorcore (thx Matt)
 House
 Jackin House (with thx to Jermaine Benjamin Dale Bruce)
 Jungle / Drum’n’bass
 Liquid Dub(thx Ran’dom Haug)
 Regstep (thanks to ‘Melia G)
 Speedcore (cheers Matt)
 Techno
 Trance
 Trap (thx Luke Allfree)
• Disney
• Easy Listening
 Bop
 Lounge
 Swing
• Electronic
 2-Step (thx Ran’dom Haug)
 8bit – aka 8-bit, Bitpop and Chiptune – (thx Marcel Borchert)
 Ambient
 Bassline (thx Leon Oliver)
 Chillwave(thx Ran’dom Haug)
 Chiptune (kudos to Dominik Landahl)
 Crunk (with thx to Jillian Edwards)
 Downtempo
 Drum & Bass (thx Luke Allfree)
 Electro
 Electro-swing (thank you Daniel Forthofer)
 Electronica
 Electronic Rock
 Hardstyle (kudos to Dominik Landahl)
  IDM/Experimental
 Industrial
 Trip Hop (thank you Michael Tait Tafoya)
• Enka
• French Pop
• German Folk
• German Pop
• Fitness & Workout
• Hip-Hop/Rap
 Alternative Rap
 Bounce
 Dirty South
 East Coast Rap
 Gangsta Rap
 Hardcore Rap
 Hip-Hop
 Latin Rap
 Old School Rap
 Rap
 Turntablism (thank you Luke Allfree)
 Underground Rap
 West Coast Rap
• Holiday
 Chanukah
 Christmas
 Christmas: Children’s
 Christmas: Classic
 Christmas: Classical
 Christmas: Comedy
 Christmas: Jazz
 Christmas: Modern
 Christmas: Pop
 Christmas: R&B
 Christmas: Religious
 Christmas: Rock
 Easter
 Halloween
 Holiday: Other
 Thanksgiving
• Indie Pop
• Industrial
• Inspirational – Christian & Gospel
 CCM
 Christian Metal
  Christian Pop
 Christian Rap
 Christian Rock
 Classic Christian
 Contemporary Gospel
 Gospel
 Christian & Gospel
 Praise & Worship
 Qawwali (with thx to Jillian Edwards)
 Southern Gospel
 Traditional Gospel
• Instrumental
 March (Marching Band)
• J-Pop
 J-Rock
 J-Synth
 J-Ska
 J-Punk
• Jazz
 Acid Jazz (with thx to Hunter Nelson)
 Avant-Garde Jazz
 Bebop (thx Mwinogo1)
 Big Band
 Blue Note (with thx to Jillian Edwards)
 Contemporary Jazz
 Cool
 Crossover Jazz
 Dixieland
 Ethio-jazz (with thx to Jillian Edwards)
 Fusion
 Gypsy Jazz (kudos to Mike Tait Tafoya)
 Hard Bop
 Latin Jazz
 Mainstream Jazz
 Ragtime
 Smooth Jazz
 Trad Jazz
• K-Pop
• Karaoke
• Kayokyoku
• Latin
 Alternativo & Rock Latino
 Argentine tango (gracias P. Moth & Sandra Sanders)
 Baladas y Boleros
  Bossa Nova (with thx to Marcos José Sant’Anna Magalhães & Alex Ede for
the reclassification)
 Brazilian
 Contemporary Latin
 Cumbia (gracias Richard Kemp)
 Flamenco / Spanish Flamenco (thank you Michael Tait Tafoya & Sandra
Sanders)
 Latin Jazz
 Nuevo Flamenco (and again Michael Tafoya)
 Pop Latino
 Portuguese fado (and again Sandra Sanders)
 Raíces
 Reggaeton y Hip-Hop
 Regional Mexicano
 Salsa y Tropical
• New Age
 Environmental
 Healing
 Meditation
 Nature
 Relaxation
 Travel
• Opera
• Pop
 Adult Contemporary
 Britpop
 Bubblegum Pop (thx Haug & John Maher)
 Chamber Pop (thx Haug)
 Dance Pop
 Dream Pop (thx Haug)
 Electro Pop (thx Haug)
 Orchestral Pop (thx Haug)
 Pop/Rock
 Pop Punk (thx Makenzie)
 Power Pop (thx Haug)
 Soft Rock
 Synthpop (thx Haug)
 Teen Pop
• R&B/Soul
 Contemporary R&B
 Disco (not a top level genre Sheldon Reynolds!)
 Doo Wop
 Funk
 Modern Soul (Cheers Nik)
  Motown
 Neo-Soul
 Northern Soul (Cheers Nik & John Maher)
 Psychedelic Soul (thank you John Maher)
 Quiet Storm
 Soul
 Soul Blues (Cheers Nik)
 Southern Soul (Cheers Nik)
• Reggae
 2-Tone (thx GFS)
 Dancehall
 Dub
 Roots Reggae
 Ska
• Rock
 Acid Rock (with thanks to Alex Antonio)
 Adult-Oriented Rock (thanks to John Maher)
 Afro Punk
 Adult Alternative
 Alternative Rock (thx Caleb Browning)
 American Trad Rock
 Anatolian Rock
 Arena Rock
 Art Rock
 Blues-Rock
 British Invasion
 Cock Rock
 Death Metal / Black Metal
 Doom Metal (thx Kevin G)
 Glam Rock
 Gothic Metal (fits here Sam DeRenzis – thx)
 Grind Core
 Hair Metal
 Hard Rock
 Math Metal (cheers Kevin)
 Math Rock (thx Ran’dom Haug)
 Metal
 Metal Core (thx Ran’dom Haug)
 Noise Rock (genre – Japanoise – thx Dominik Landahl)
 Jam Bands
 Post Punk (thx Ben Vee Bedlamite)
 Prog-Rock/Art Rock
 Progressive Metal (thx Ran’dom Haug)
 Psychedelic
  Rock & Roll
 Rockabilly (it’s here Mark Murdock!)
 Roots Rock
 Singer/Songwriter
 Southern Rock
 Spazzcore (thx Haug)
 Stoner Metal (duuuude)
 Surf
 Technical Death Metal (cheers Pierre)
 Tex-Mex
 Time Lord Rock (Trock) ~ (thanks to ‘Melia G)
 Trash Metal (thanks to Pierre A)
• Singer/Songwriter
 Alternative Folk
 Contemporary Folk
 Contemporary Singer/Songwriter
 Indie Folk (with thanks to Andrew Barrett)
 Folk-Rock
 Love Song (Chanson – merci Marcel Borchert)
 New Acoustic
 Traditional Folk
• Soundtrack
 Foreign Cinema
 Movie Soundtrack (thanks Julien)
 Musicals
 Original Score
 Soundtrack
 TV Soundtrack
• Spoken Word
• Tex-Mex / Tejano (with thx to Israel Lopez)
 Chicano
 Classic
 Conjunto
 Conjunto Progressive
 New Mex
 Tex-Mex
• Vocal
 A cappella (with kudos to Sheldon Reynolds)
 Barbershop (with thx to Kelly Chism)
 Doo-wop (with thx to Bradley Thompson)
 Gregorian Chant (hat tip to Deborah Knight-Nikifortchuk)
 Standards
 Traditional Pop
 Vocal Jazz
  Vocal Pop
• World
 Africa
 Afro-Beat
 Afro-Pop
 Asia
 Australia
 Cajun
 Calypso (thx Gerald John)
 Caribbean
 Carnatic (Karnataka Sanghetha – thx Abhijith)
 Celtic
 Celtic Folk
 Contemporary Celtic
 Coupé-décalé (thx Samy) – Congo
 Dangdut (thank you Achmad Ivanny)
 Drinking Songs
 Drone (with thx to Robert Conrod)
 Europe
 France
 Hawaii
 Hindustani (thank you Abhijith)
 Indian Ghazal (thank you Gitika Thakur)
 Indian Pop
 Japan
 Japanese Pop
 Klezmer
 Mbalax (thank you Samy) – Senegal
 Middle East
 North America
 Ode (thank you Sheldon Reynolds)
 Piphat (cheers Samy B) – Thailand
 Polka
 Soca (thx Gerald John)
 South Africa
 South America
 Traditional Celtic
 Worldbeat
 Zydeco
 MODULE 7 (INFORMATION SHEET 7.1)

INTRUMENTS

Learning Objectives:
After reading this learner will know the different instruments in an Orchestra.

An orchestra (/ˈɔːrkᵻstrə/ or US /ˈɔːrˌkɛstrə/; Italian: [orˈkɛstra]) is a

large instrumental ensemble, often used in classical music, that contains sections
of string (violin,viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind,
and percussion instruments. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may
sometimes be grouped into a fifth section such as a keyboard section or may stand
alone, as may the concert harpand, for 20th and 21st century compositions, electric and
electronic instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα (orchestra),
the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek
chorus.[1] The orchestra grew by accretion throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but
the strings, woodwinds, and brass sections changed very little in composition during
the course of the 20th century

Modern orchestra[edit]
Woodwinds
2–4 Western concert 2 Timpani (played by one timpanist)
flute (1 doubling piccolo) Snare drum
2–4 Oboes (1 doubling cor Anglais) Tenor drum
2–4 Clarinets (1- Bass drum
2 doubling bass clarinet and/or Cymbals
E♭Clarinet) Tam-tam
Triangle
2–
Wood block
4 Bassoons (1 doubling contrabassoon)
Tambourine
1 contrabassoon
Glockenspiel
(1 or more Saxophones of various
types) Xylophone
Brass Vibraphone
4–8 German (usually Tubular bells
Marimba
double) horns in F/B♭ (in
France:French horns; in
Vienna: Vienna horns)
3–6 Trumpets in B♭, C
3–6 Trombones (1–2 bass trombones)
1–2 Tubas
(1 or more Baritone
horns/euphoniums)
(1 or more Wagner tubas)
Keyboards
1 Piano
1 Celesta
(Pipe organ in some works)
1–2 Harps
Strings
16 Violins 1
14 Violins 2
12 Violas
10 Cellos
8 Double basses
 MODULE 8 (INFORMATION SHEET 8.1)

KINDS OF DANCES

Learning Objectives:
After reading this learner will know the different genres of dance.
Types of Dance - Categories
Ballroom Dances
These dances started appearing first in Italy, during the early years of Renaissance.
Popularity of this kind of entertainment quickly swept over the Europe, United States
and the World. Although many other simpler and more easily preformed types of
dances caused the ballroom dances to lose some of their influence, modern worldwide
dancing audience started resurrecting these immortal dances in ever increasing pace.
• Waltz - This graceful and slow two person dance was first introduced in mid-19th
century and was greatly popularized by the music of the famous composer Johann
Strauss. Today this dance represents gold standard and the most famous dance of
the ballrooms around the world.
• Viennese Waltz - Original form of waltz, first performed at the Italian courts is
today remembered as Viennese Waltz. It differs from the much more famous
"English Slow Waltz" by having much faster 180 beats per minute and was the first
who introduced "closed hold" between performers.
• Tango - Originally created in the Argentinean region of Rio de la Plata, this dance
is today known by many of its variations (Argentine tango, Uruguayan tango, Finish
Tango and two types of Ballroom tangos - standard and American) and the
fascinating sensual and energetic style.
• Cha-Cha-Cha - This incredibly rhythmic dance created in Latin America managed
to meld together both the slow and very energetic movements, making it an instant
hit among the dancers around the world.
• Rumba - Popularity of this Cuban dance came from its focus on sensual hip
movements of dance partners. Since its creation in 1930s many types of Rumba
were created, most notably Cuban Rumba (with the style of the African slaves
which created it), Catalan Rumba (with Spanish flavor), Flamenco Rumba and
African Rumba.
• Samba - Samba is a famous dance and musical genre that originated form the coast
of Africa and land of Brazil. Today infectious rhythm of Samba is regarded as the
national dance of Brazil, and its famous Brazilian Carnival gathers millions Samba
dance fans every year.
• Mambo - This Cuban dance that accompanies the music of the same name was
introduced in 1930s, and quickly managed to gain popularity with the exploits of
famous musicians and dancers such as Perez Prado, Benny Moré, Tongolele,
Adalberto Martínez, Rosa Carmina and Lilia Prado.
• Quickstep
• Jive
• Bolero

African-American and Traditional Jazz dances

• Charleston - This extremely popular dance type was popularized by famous tune
called "The Charleston" by composer and pianist James P. Johnson. Charleston
craze soon took over the enthusiastic dancers of Prohibition era of United States.
• Swing - This dance is today synonym for the jazz and swing music of the 1920s-
1930s.Because of the many styles of Jazz music, Swing also comes in many flavors -
Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, Boogie Woogie, West Coast Swing and Rock and Roll.
• Tap Dance - This extremely popular form of dance was first introduced during
1920s Prohibition era in United States. Originally created by the African slaves, tap
dancing came into the mainstream with the performances of Nicholas brothers.
Few short years later, tap dancing conquered Hollywood and then entire world.
• Moonwalk - This extremely famous dance move that emuates the illusion of
walking backwards was first performed by pop icon Michael Jackson in March of
1983, and ever since then it gained planetary fame. No single dance move ever
created managed to receive this amount of popularity and recognition.
• Boogie-woogie - This quick and energetic style of dance became widely popular
during 1930s and 1940s.
Worldwide Dances / Latin dances
• Salsa - This Latin dance is today one of the most popular dances in Latin America,
North America, Europe and Australia. It's very sensual form, energetic movement
 and innovative choreography that was influenced by Mambo, Changuyi and Rumba
made it very popular all around the world.
• Flamenco - This famous Spanish dance originated from the region of Andalusia,
and it gained its name only in 18th century. Its magical, passionate and energetic
fusion of singing (cante), guitar playing (toque), dance and handclaps (palmas) made
it famous in entire world and became one of the accepted heritages of entire
humanity.
• Argentine tango - Among many types of tango dance, Argentinian dance strives to
preserve original form of tango that was first created in the region of Rio de la Plata.
• Lambada - This famous dance that originated from Para, Brayil became
internationally popular during 1980s. It managed to successfully fuse aspects of
Forro, salsa, merengue, maxixe and the carimbó into unforgettable dance style.
• Polka - Appearance of polka in mid-19th century created one of the largest "dance
crazes" that our world ever seen. It managed to influence countless other dances,
became national dance of many European countries and is extremely popular in
entire Western hemisphere.
• Jive
• East Coast Swing
• Capoeira
• Country/ Western Dances
• Folk Dance
• Belly dance

Professional performance dance

Professional dancing was first introduced in the early years of Italian Renaissance when
music, dance, arts and poetry started to rise in popularity after the millennia of
medieval stagnation. Refined by the efforts of the France and Russia, ballet became the
premier technical concert dance. Hailed as one of the most revered and most
complicated dance of all time, ballet continued its rise to worldwide domination. In the
modern times, many other professional dances came to be, such as Contemporary
dance, Modern Dance, Concert dance, but none of them managed to surpass the
complexity, physical strain, and heritage of ballet.
• Ballet
• Contemporary dance
• Concert Dance
• Modern Dance
• Tap Dance

Modern Dances
Advancements in music technology brought the birth of many new types of dances.
Introduction of electronic and rock music brought the era of House, Punk, Rave and
Disco dance. Faraway country of India did not cared much for those styles, and in
accordance to the deeply seeded religious beliefs, they incorporated dance of their gods
to everyday life and was and profitable Bollywood movie scene.
• House dance
• Punk dance
• Rave dance
• Disco dance
• Bollywood dance
Hip-hop & Funk dance
Dancing style of Hip-Hop evolved from the music style that was first introduced
during 1970s. Powered by the great popularity, exposure in media, movies and
television programs, hip-hop dances found a great foothold in United States, France,
United Kingdom and South Korea. A very similar style called Funk was also created
during 1970s, and is today regarded as one of the most influential pieces of Hip-hop
dance styles.
• Breakdance (Breaking)
• Bounce
• Electric boogaloo
• Street Jazz
• Jookin'
• Locking
• Popping
 MODULE 9 (INFORMATION SHEET 9.1)

STAGE PLAY

Learning Objectives:
After reading this learner will know how to create a stage play.

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting

of dialoguebetween characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than
just reading. Plays are performed at a variety of levels, from Broadway, Off-
Broadway, regional theater, to Community theatre, as well as University or school
productions. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had
little preference whether their plays were performed or read. The term "play" can refer
to both the written works of playwrights and to their complete theatrical performance
STAGE TERMS GLOSSARY
Common Theater Terms

Auditions: Readings before a director to determine casting of a play.

Call Backs: An additional audition for the final actors being considered. Similar to
semifinals in sports.
Clear the Stage: A direction given to all actors, musicians, and technicians to leave
the stage area prior to the beginning of a play.
Places: The direction for all actors, musicians, and technicians to go to their proper
position and be ready for the beginning of a play or scene.
Strike: Taking down, changing out and putting away costumes, props and sets after a
production.
Run Through: An uninterrupted rehearsal of a scene, act, or the entire play.
Curtain Call/Bows: The carefully choreographed appearance of actors on stage after
the performance to acknowledge the applause of the audience.
Heads Up!: A term of warning used to call attention to overhead danger. Technical
Elements Flats: Muslin or plywood covered frames used to build the walls of a stage
setting.
Props: Small hand held items used by actors to create the period, character or setting.
Platforms: Wooden units joined together to build the floors for a stage setting.
Costumes: The clothing worn by the actors that helps determine character, time,
theme and mood.
Mask: A term used meaning “to hide.” Also, a covering for an actors face that
disguises or changes their character. often made out of leather, plastic or paper maché.
Dark: A time when all lights are out or the theater is closed.
Stage Manager: Person responsible for the physical set up, actors, and technical cues
of a production as it is performed.
Common Theater Terms - 2 Elements of a Play

Dialogue: Written conversation.

Text: The written word.
Script: A complete scene or play in a format to be produced by actors and directors.
Initial Incident: The first most important event in a play from which the rest of the
play develops.
Exposition: The explanation of who, what, when, where, why of a play. Preliminary
Situation: The story of the play as the curtain rises.
Climax: The major event in a play, the turning point of the story.
Rising Action: The series of events following the initial incident. How the story builds
towards its climax.
Falling Action/Denouement: The series of events following the climax.
Conclusion: The final outcome of the play. Protagonist: The play revolves around this
character. Often the “good guy” but not always.
Antagonist: This character forces change or creates conflict for the protagonist. Often
the “bad guy.”
Theme/Message/Purpose/Moral: What the play as a piece of art is trying to say to
the audience.
Setting: Where the play occurs in terms of time and place.
Monologue: A long speech said by a single actor to themselves, the audience, or to
another character.
Soliloquy: A long speech said by a single actor to themselves or the audience, but not
to another character.
Act: An organizational division in scripts. Scene: An organizational division in scripts.
Often several scenes make up an ACT.

Common Theater Terms - 3 Terms for the Actor

Pantomime: A story or action performed with out words relying on body language.
Stage Business: Small actions such as smoking, using a fan, pouring a drink, etc. Used
to fill time, create character, and sometimes to make the action “more realistic.”
Open Up/Cheat Out: Facing as much towards the audience as possible.
Take the Stage: What an actor does when they take control of the scene or take focus
of the audience.
Given Circumstances: The who, what, when, where, why of the play or scene or
character.
Focus: Where the director wants the audience to look. The actors point of
concentration.
Diction: The actors ability to be understood by the audience.
Volume: The actors ability to be heard by the audience.
Cue: The last words or actions indicating the time for another actor to speak or move.
Ad lib: Lines made up by an actor to fill in where there would be an undesirable pause
due to dropped lines, technical problems, etc.
Aside: Lines said to the audience that other actors onstage are not supposed to be
hearing.
Pick up Cues: A direction for the actor to begin responding immediately without
allowing any lapse time.
Build: To increase the tempo or volume or both to reach a climax in a scene.
Cheating: Using a movement or position that may not be realistic but allows the
audience to see the action more clearly.

Common Theater Terms - 4 Mapping the Stage

Upstage: The area of the stage that is the furthest from the audience.
Downstage: The area of the stage that is the closest to the audience.
Stage Right: The right side of the stage from the actor’s point of view (facing the
audience.)
Stage Left: The left side of the stage from the actor’s point of view (facing the
audience.)
Center: Center of the stage.
Full Front: Facing the audience.
Full Back: Facing away from the audience.
Cross: Movement from one area of the stage to another.
Blocking: The set movement of all the actors onstage throughout the play.
Wings: The areas to the left and right of the stage out of view to the audience. A part
of the backstage area.
Proscenium: An arched opening through which the audience sees the stage. Also a
style of theater with the audience seated predominantly in front of the stage.
Apron: The usually curved area of the stage closest to the audience.
Backstage/Offstage: Usually the entire stage area not visible to the audience.
House: The audience area.
Backdrop: The drop farthest upstage in most settings. Also a large curtain, sometimes
with a picture or design.
Curtain Line: The imaginary line across the stage floor which follows the line of the
front curtain.
Fly Loft: The are above the stage where curtains and set pieces are stored and hidden
during a production.
Grand Drape/Main Rag: The front, often decorative, curtain of a stage.
Legs: Narrow curtains in the wings to mask the backstage areas.
Cyclorama: A large, usually white, curtain that is lit to create setting and masks the
back of the stage behind the set.
Trap: An opening in the stage floor for actors to pass through to make entrances and
exits.