Luminous intensity is a measure of the brightness of a light source in a particular direction. Synonyms for this term include brightness, radiance, brilliance, luminosity, and light intensity. Each of these words describes the level of light emitted by a source and its perceived brightness by the human eye. Brightness and radiance both refer to the amount of light emitted, while brilliance and luminosity describe the quality of that light. Light intensity is a more technical term that refers to the amount of light passing through a unit area per unit time. Regardless of the word chosen, the measure of luminous intensity is critical in fields such as lighting design and photography.