Digital Photography Glossary: L

landscape mode: The orientation of an image in which the longest dimension is horizontal; also called wide orientation.

layer: A way of managing elements of an image in stackable overlays that can be manipulated separately, moved to a different stacking order, or made partially or fully transparent.

LCD hood: A four-sided awning that covers a digital camera’s LCD screen from bright sunlight, making the LCD easier to view.

LCD screen: Stands for liquid crystal display. The display screen included on most digital cameras.

LED: Light Emitting Diode. A lighting technology used in many electronic devices.

lens: One or more elements of optical glass or similar material designed to collect and focus rays of light to form a sharp image on the film, paper, sensor, or screen.

lens hood: A device that shades the lens, protecting it from extraneous light outside the actual picture area that can reduce the contrast of the image.

light dome: A plastic dome that diffuses light and eliminates reflections in photographs. You place the objects you want to shoot under this dome.

light tent: A white cloth teepee-shaped tent that diffuses light and eliminates reflections in photographs. You place the objects you want to shoot inside this tent.

lossless compression: A file-compression scheme that doesn’t sacrifice any vital image data in the compression process. Lossless compression tosses only redundant data, so image quality is unaffected.

lossy compression: A compression scheme that eliminates important image data in the name of achieving smaller file sizes. High amounts of lossy compression reduce image quality.