Acid
A substance that is capable of donating hydrogen ions (H+) into solution, typically aqueous, and thus the hydrogen ion is in its hydronium form, H3O +. An acid reacts with a base to form a salt and water (eg: sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide will form sodium sulfate {a salt} and water). (see also: base, pH)
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Additive color space
A color space such as the RGB (red-green-blue), whereby when component values are added, one obtains white. The RGB space describes well the behavior of light, as when red, green, and blue light combine to form white light, or conversely, white light is seperated into its component colors via prism. (see also: color space, subtractive color space
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Alchemy
A collection of rights, rituals, and processes occuring during medieval times, often in the quest of turning ordinary things into those of value, such as turning lead into gold. Alchemy was the forerunner of modern chemistry, which retains an occasional terminological reference that harkens to that older, slightly more mystical time. (see also: photography)
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Aqueous
Referring to a solution in which water is the solvent. (eg: the soda ash was in aqueous solution)
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Archival
An adjective used to describe the state of a substance to withstand the tests of time. Often, when referring to paper or photographic supplies, this implies an acid-free condition where buffering agents may or may not be used to control shifts in environmental pH. Currently there is no generally accepted standard for exactly what is or what is not archival, though there is a long history of proven archival methodologies and curative techniques.
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Base
A substance that is capable of donating hydroxide ions (OH-) into solution, typically aqueous. A base reacts with an acid to form a salt and water (eg: hydrochloric acid and sodium bicarbonate {baking soda} will form sodium chlodire {table salt} and water). (see also: acid, pH)
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Color space
A vector space mapping a range of frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum (ie: color) to a collection of linearly independent and generally orthogonal components. Various schemas for color spaces have been proposed and implemented, such as the RGB (red-green-blue), CMYK (cyan-magenta-yellow-black), HSB (hue-saturation-brightness), CIE LAB, YIQ, YUV, and XYZ, to name a few. Different spaces cover different areas of color, and some are better at some things than others. Conversion between color spaces can sometimes be completed by a simple linear transformation, and at other times the problem can be non-trivial. (see also: additive color space, subtractive color space)
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Compound eye
A complex light-sensing and image-forming organ found in the class Insecta, order hymenoptera (eg: bees and wasps). The compound eye is composed many individual light-sensing chambers and lenses, working collectively to sense complex patterns and frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, forming detailed images both in the visble spectrum, as well as in the ultraviolet.&nsbp; A typical housefly has about 4,000 segements in each eye, while a dragonfly can have more than 50,000. (see also: ocelli, simple eye)
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Dye
A colored substance, typically in aqueous solution, intended to be applied to one or more particular substrates (eg: paper, fabric, hair), so as to impart that color to the substrate. Dyes are usually less stable than pigments, but can generally produce a broader and more vivid color space. (see also: ink, pigment)
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Entomology
The study and science of insects (kindgdom Animalia, phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta).
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Gicleé
From the French (and pronounced 'zhuh-clay'), literally translated as something akin to "to squirt", this word in a printing context refers to prints or printing devices that utilize inkjet technology to render the image. Usually giclée prints are made with specialized pigmented-inks that are archival in nature. (see also: inkjet, "Lies, Damn Lies, and Giclée Prints")
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Imaging
The act of creating, making, or otherwise forming an image. (see also: Orion Imaging)
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Ink
A substance, generally liquid in form, composed of a combination of dyes and/or pigments and solvent intended to mark or otherwise color one or more substrates. (eg: India ink is a well-suited ink for writing implements intended for archival purposes) (see also: dye, pigment)
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Inkjet
A digital printing device that creates tiny droplets of ink (some smaller than the size of a red blood cell), sprayed upon a substrate (eg: paper, labels, plastic laminate) to render an image. Different devices utilize different technologies to create the droplets: some use the piezoelectric effect to spray a tiny controlled amount of ink, while others use heat to create a quickly-expanding bubble that sprays the droplet. While crude at first, these technologies have led to a virtual revolution in printing, allowing images to be rendered at astounding resolutions, using various ink sets (appropriate for different color spaces), upon a wide range of substrates. Indeed, major museums and institutions will sometimes make a duplicate of a famous work employing inkjet technology, and then exhibit the duplicate while keeping the original safe. The two images are virtually identical when viewed from a reasonable distance. When used in an archival or museum-grade sense, inkjet prints are often called giclée prints. (see also: giclée)
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Inorganic
An adjective used to describe a chemical compound as not containing carbon, or more specifically the CH bond since the carbonate salts, among others, are also generally considered inorganic (eg: hydrogen sulfide, ammonium molybdate, sodium bicarbonate). (see also: organic)
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Lithography
A method of printing the employs the use of 'plates' to transfer ink to a substrate. Lithography is one of the oldest forms of printing, and has changed radically over the centuries. Meaning literally 'stone-writing', the printing plates were originally made from etched or carved stone. Today the plates are made from thin sheets of chemically-treated metal or other material, but the basic process remains essentially the same: the printing plate is inked and then pressed against a substrate, such as paper, transferring the ink and forming the printed image. For multi-color images, many layers can be printed on top of one another, such as in four-color process color printing, where the four colors are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Lithography, in one of its various incarnations, is the process with which most color magazines and books are printed, and can also be used to make high quality reproductions of paintings or photographs. (see also: photography, screen printing)
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Ocelli
The simple eyes (singularly ocellus) of an insect, having only a single light sensing chamber. Ocelli are more effective at sensing changes in light than at forming images, whereas a compound eye can be highly effective at both. (see also: compound eye, simple eye)
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Ohhhmmmm
The sound of the Universe comtemplating your query. (see also: hmmm...)
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Organic
In the context of chemistry, organic is an adjective implying that a compound is one that contains carbon (eg: benzene, ethanol, urea). In the context of fruit & vegetables, organic is an adjective implying that said fruit or vegetable was cultivated along certain guidelines pertaining to pesticide use and land management, generally thought to be more sustainable over the longer term, with fewer chemical side-effects, than other more industrial methods of farming. (see also: inorganic)
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Orion
A formation of stars, imagined to be in the shape of the mythical hunter Orion. Many tales have been told regarding how and why Orion wound up where he is, including the tale of the hunter being stung and killed by the scorpion Scorpius, and thereby cast up into the sky. Interestingly, Orion is directly opposed to Scorpio in time, almost never being seen in the same sky, and circling each one year after the next. (see also: Orion Imaging)
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Orion Imaging
Art, Nature, & Living. (see also: imaging, Orion)
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pH
The relative proportion of hydrogen ions in an aqueous solution, defined as the additive inverse of the logarithm of the molar hydrogen ion concentration, or rather pH = -log([H+]). The pH scale is usually known to extend from 1 (acidic) to 14 (basic or alkaline), with pure water at room temperature measuring about 7. (see also: acid, base)
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Photography
A photochemical process used to form and reproduce an image. Traditionally, photography employs the use of an emulsion of a halide of silver coated upon a translucent film that is exposed to light focused through a lense, which when chemically altered during a development process, forms an inverse image known as a 'negative'. This negative is then used to complete the reverse process, known as printing, whereby light is cast through the negative onto a sheet of photosensitive paper coated with a silver halide emulsion (not unlike the film itself), which is again chemically altered in a developing process, and which then becomes a 'print'. (see also: alchemy, archival, lithography, silver gelatin)
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Piezoelectric effect
The phenomenon observed in some crystals, such as quartz, whereby the crystal mechanically vibrates when in the vicinity of an electric field, and conversely will produce an electric field when mechanically vibrated. This effect is exploited in the operations of diverse devices including loudspeakers, wristwatches, and inkjet printers.
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Pigment
When used in a printing context, a pigment is a substance, typically an inorganic solid ground to a fine powder (eg: titanium dioxide to make white, copper phthalocyanine to make blue), suspended in a solution used to color a substrate (eg: paper, fabric, carpet). In a biological context, a pigment is typically an organic substance that gives color to cellular tissue (eg: chlorophyll in green plants, melanin in light and dark human skin, carotenoids in orange carrots) and is used to various biological ends such as camouflage, protection from ultraviolet radiation, and photosynthesis. (see also: dye, ink)
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Screen printing
A method of printing that employs 'screens' made from a fabric stretched over a frame. The fabric is chemically treated in such a way as to allow ink to pass through the screen only in certain places, which is what forms the printed image. There exist many variations in techniques for making and utilizing the screens of this printing process. Screen printing, also known as silk screening, is a popular process for printing onto fabric and is used in the manufacturing process of many garments. (see also: lithography, photography)
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Silver gelatin
Traditional chemistry-based photography is based on the near-alchemical photoreactions of silver halide crystals, often suspended in a gelatin coating which rests upon a substrate. Both black & white film and photographic paper are made in this fashion. Hence comes the term "silver gelatin print" which refers to a traditional black & white photograph. More modern emulsions may or may not contain actual gelatin, but all silver gelatin prints do indeed contain silver, in various states of reduction, in the form of silver halide crystals. (see also: alchemy, archival, photography)
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Simple eye
(see also: ocelli, compound eye)
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Subtractive color space
A color space such as the CMYK (cyan-magenta-yellow-black), whereby when component values are added, one obtains black. This space describes well the behaviour of pigments, such as when one mixes cyan, magenta, and yellow paints or dyes and obtains a color very near to black. Note that this usually takes quite a bit of pigment, which explains why the B or black is added to the space: the space could do with only the CMY part, but this is the space that printers often use, and so adding a pure black to the schema makes for using substantially less ink, while also producing a very satisfactory black. (see also: color space, additive color space
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Taxonomy
(see also: cladistics, phylogenetics)
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