acutance

photography

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July 23, 2026

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Acutance is a photography term that measures how sharp or abrupt an edge appears in an image. It's a way to quantify the steepness of a transition from light to dark in a photograph. This concept is related to the broader idea of visual acuity, which refers to the ability to perceive fine details. In photography, controlling sharpness, along with exposure and lighting, is a key aspect of picture-taking technique.1234

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technology of photography
Resolving power and acutance
…measured physically to give an acutance value, which is preferred to resolving power as a criterion of a film’s sharpness performance. Fine-grain films with thin emulsions yield the highest acutance.
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…measured physically to give an acutance value, which is preferred to resolving power as a criterion of a film’s sharpness performance. Fine-grain films with thin emulsions yield the highest acutance.
Read More