Editing Zone System (section)

{{Short description|Photographic technique}}

The '''Zone System''' is a [[photography|photographic]] technique for determining optimal [[photographic film|film]] [[exposure (photography)|exposure]] and [[Photographic processing|development]], formulated by [[Ansel Adams]] and [[Fred R. Archer|Fred Archer]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia Americana |publisher=Scholastic Library Publishing |year=2006 |volume=30 |page=137 |isbn=0-7172-0139-2 |quote=By 1939 he had devised the Zone System...}}<br/>{{cite book|last=Robinson |first=Edward M. |title=Crime scene photography |publisher=Academic Press |year=2007 |page=72 |isbn=978-0-12-369383-9 |quote=...Ansel Adams' zone system, was formulated in 1939–1940.}}</ref> Adams described the Zone System as "[...] not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of [[sensitometry]], worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939–40."<ref>{{Cite book
  | last = Dowdell
  | first = John J.
  | author2 = Zakia, Richard D.
  | title = Zone systemizer for creative photographic control, Part 1
  | publisher = Morgan & Morgan
  | year = 1973
  | pages = 6
  | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=F8hTAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Fred+Archer%22+zone+system
  | isbn = 978-0-87100-040-8}}
</ref>

The technique is based on the late 19th-century sensitometry studies of [[Hurter and Driffield]]. The Zone System provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with [[black-and-white]] [[sheet film]], the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and color, [[negative film|negative]] and [[reversal film|reversal]], and to [[digital photography]].