Editing Photography (section)

{{Short description|Art and practice of creating images by recording light}}
{{Other uses}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2018}}
[[File:Photographer Photographing Nevada Mountains.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Photography of [[Sierra Nevada]]]]

'''Photography''' is the [[visual arts|art]], application, and practice of creating [[image]]s by recording [[light]], either electronically by means of an [[image sensor]], or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as [[photographic film]]. It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing (e.g., [[photolithography]]), and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, [[film]] and [[video production]], recreational purposes, hobby, and [[mass communication]].<ref>{{Cite book| title = The Focal Dictionary of Photographic Technologies| last = Spencer| first = D A| year = 1973| publisher = Focal Press| isbn = 978-0-13-322719-2| page = 454}}</ref> A person who operates a camera to capture or take [[Photograph|photographs]] is called a [[photographer]], while the captured image, also known as a [[photograph]], is the result produced by the [[camera]].

Typically, a [[lens]] is used to [[focus (optics)|focus]] the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a [[camera]] during a timed [[Exposure (photography)|exposure]]. With an electronic image sensor, this produces an [[Charge-coupled device|electrical charge]] at each [[pixel]], which is [[Image processing|electronically processed]] and stored in a [[Image file formats|digital image file]] for subsequent display or processing. The result with [[photographic emulsion]] is an invisible [[latent image]], which is later chemically [[Photographic developer|"developed"]] into a visible image, either [[Negative (photography)|negative]] or [[Positive (photography)|positive]], depending on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of [[photographic processing|processing]]. A negative image on film is traditionally used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a [[Photographic print|print]], either by using an [[enlarger]] or by [[contact print]]ing.

Before the emergence of [[digital photography]], photographs that utilized film had to be developed to produce negatives or projectable slides, and negatives had to be printed as positive images, usually in enlarged form. This was typically done by photographic laboratories, but many amateur photographers, students, and photographic artists did their own processing.