| Pan | (Panning) The movement of a film or video camera (rotating on a vertical axis) |
| PalmCorder | A Camcorder which can sit on the palm of the hand. |
| Palette | A special dialog with a specialised editing purpose. By default palettes appear screen right. They can be stacked with others palettes and docked. Choose the palette name in the Window menu to open it. To show or hide all palettes, press shortcut Shift + Tab. |
| PAL | Phase Alternating Line. The color television system used in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. |
| Overlap | Two shots that look like they have been taken at the same time on two camcorders |
| Options bar | a menu with context sensitive commands for the active tool that appears (by default) screen top left below the main menu |
| Optimize | The process of fine-tuning the file size and display quality of an image or image slice destined for the web |
| ODR | Output Device Resolution. The number of ink dots per inch of paper produced by the printer |
| NTSC | National Television Systems Committee The color television system used in the USA, Canada, and Japan. |
| Nose room | The space in front, and in the direction, of moving or stationary subjects. |
| Normal Lens | A lens where the angle of view approximately represents that of the human eye |
| Nonlinear editing | Computerised editing where images are then stored on the hard drive |
| Non-destructive editing | An editing approach that doesn’t alter the original pixels in a photo throughout the enhancement process. Typically used for Raw processing or in techniques that make use of Smart Object technology |
| MS | (medium shot) The MS is used to identify and explore characters, to transition to much closer shots, and emphasize a point |
| Motherboard | An electronic board containing the main functional elements of a computer upon which other components can be connected |
| Monochrome | Black and white images |
| Monitor | A television that has inputs and outputs to allow playback direct from a camcorder or VHS |
| MnLi | Magnesium lithium. Rechargeable battery type |
| Mixer | Combining several audio or video inputs into one |
| mask | masks can be attached to layers to protect areas from editing changes. Masks can be saved as alpha channels. |