Being new at something is good, and certainly not something to ever be ashamed of. It can be exciting trying to learn everything you can about photography, but it can also be intimidating. There is too much information to take in right out of the gates. You can see why people end up finding out only what they need to mildly succeed, and sticking with it. I prefer to always grow, and by sharing some tips that I've learned I will probably pick up ten more from the comments.
Computers have always been something that came easily to me, while in a way I sympathize with the masses that just don't get it. If the average person could just wrap their head around operating systems, file structures, browsers they would find life much easier. The problem is that telling someone how to use a computer often turns into a major bla bla bla session on the other end. Photography is the same way. I can specifically remember years ago when listening to an experienced photographer tell me about different settings. Looking back now everything I was being told made sense, but at the time I really was not understanding a word they were saying. Hopefully something I throw together here helps.
Fancy Terms
A lot of the terms people shy away from are simply fancy names for basic concepts. Getting comfortable with them will come over time. Here are my best attempts at explaining it in simple terms with no technical bla bla bla.
F-Stop
Aperture, or the "f-stop" is simply the size of the opening your shooting though. Think of it like your eyelids. The more wide open the stop like f/2.8, the more light comes in. F/16 would be squinting. I'm pretty sure Peter Hurley's "squinch" would be considered an f/4. This setting on the camera is dependent on the f-stop of the lens. I remember struggling with this early on.
F-Stops also determines depth of field, or as I've often heard it called "that blurred background trick." Shooting at a f/2.8 from fairly close to your subject, with their background a bit further away will get you a good blurred background. It is really all about the distances so play around. If you need to get subjects at different distances in focus (like eyes in group shots) try a higher f-stop like f/5.6 or f/8.0.
ISO
If you have ever gotten pictures that looked great on the LCD on the back of the camera, but looked like a pixel party on the computer, your ISO may have been high. ISO is like night vision. Let's use an example of your own eyes again. Try and imagine that as things got darker, your eyes immediately adjusted and were able to turn a very dark room into looking like a light was on. The only downside is that things aren't quite as clear. Everything looks grainy and noisy. That is like ISO 12800. If it were daylight out you would have no lighting adjustment needed, and would have your best quality at ISO100. ISO performance is a big part of what you are paying for with your camera's sensor. The more expensive full frame cameras have amazing ISO range nowadays.
Shutter Speed
Shutter speed may appear and seem simple, but when we have to pay attention to so many other new concepts it's easy to fall into safe zones. I ran into a lot of issues shooting weddings when I first started, and was used to shooting outdoors in aperture priority mode. Slower speeds 1/40th of a second are often too slow to stop motion, and can result in a lot of missed shots at events. I now switch to shutter priority and lock in around 1/125th of a second, letting the camera pick my ISO and f-stop.
Slow shutter speeds can be used to show motion. My favorite type of photography is long exposure where I'll push the shutter speed out to a number of seconds or even minutes.
Exposure
Ok, so exposure isn't exactly a fancy word like the others. But understanding the way the three above concepts work together is important. The best way to learn is to experiment. You will find tips like ETTR or "expose to the right" that can help you get the best quality out of your exposures. It is good to become comfortable looking at the histogram so you can tell if your shots have blown highlights, or shadows lacking any detail.
Things to Look Out For
A favorite shot from the Buffalo, NY waterfront.
Chromatic Aberration
This is a very geeky thing to mention, but the fix is incredibly simple if you are an Adobe Lightroom user. The phenomenon happens when a lens fails to focus all colors in the spectrum to the same convergence point. Simply check the box that says "Remove Chromatic Aberration" and your pinky-purple fringes will disappear.
Halos
The clarity slider in Lightroom can really make areas of your photo pop. However in doing so, bright areas next to dark areas are often accentuated. Sometimes this can actually make the bright border on the edge of the dark border glow too bright. This creates a halo effect. I still see it on a lot of popular photos. I find the best way to avoid it is to work with local adjustments instead of global. My problem with global adjustments for things like sharpness or clarity, is that when you are adjusting it you are paying attention to your desired area to change and not the rest of the photo where the problems may arise. If you do decide to use some global adjustments you can use the brush tool to back them off where you start to see halos at the edges. A lot of my old photos have strong halos.
Mind Your Borders
Strong photos don't have a lot of distractions. Don't make the mistake of only seeing your subject in the photo and wearing blinders to any possible mistakes. Often these mistakes occur by the edges of a photo, and can be easily fixed with a crop of the trusty spot removal tool.
Highs and Lows
I mentioned understanding the Histogram. Very simply the histogram graphs how the photo is exposed. The left is the shadows, and the right is the highlights. You should have a solid hill somewhere in the middle. A sharp ramp to the right is mostly overexposed and will be too bright. A sharp ramp to the left will be very dark and most likely lack detail in the shadows.
Yes raw files have plenty of flexibility to correct this, but there are limitations and the better the original exposure, the less you will be affected. A pure white blob from being overexposed cannot be fixed, it must be replaced via composite or cloning. This goes the same for black blobs. Don't make blobs, know your histogram. Another area very dependent on a clean histogram is printing. I am not versed in why but having any pure white, or pure black in your photo doesn't bode well. Maybe someone more knowledgeable that I can explain this in the comments.
Ghosting
Ghosting is a term that refers to objects in a photo that have moved and don't properly align when combining photos. It comes up when making panoramic shots, and when creating HDR photos of multiple bracketed exposures. Tree branches and clouds are classic examples of things that move with the wind. If you aren't using a tripod to capture the frames you will also have camera movement.
Keep it Level
Unless you are going for the old Dutch tilt, make sure your image is plumb. Horizons should be straight. Basically any visible line in a image has the potential to make or break your photo. Be mindful of these while capturing the photo. A small change in point of view can saves major headaches down the road when trying to correct lens distortion, or difficult angles.
So Much For Simple
Alright, maybe I rattled through too much photo jargon. But I'm telling you this is the stuff that I've found matters. At least what I've latched onto so far. What did I miss? Where am I wrong? I'd love to hear what you think.
Hi Michael. Not a bad intro to the photo world. I think it would always be a challenge to fit everything to do with exposure into an article like this - so much to say, so little time - but a good overview in my opinion. It was pleasing (and interesting) to see that you experienced the same confusing items when starting out as I did too! Just one point I would make and that is on your discussion of histogram. I would be careful of relying too much on the histogram. Use it as a tool, of course, but don't be a slave to it. Whether the "hump" is in the centre or not depends on your photo and what you are trying to achieve. It is perfectly acceptable to have a histogram heavily leaning to the left in a low-key shot (e.g. black-background portrait) and heavily leaning to the right in the high-key shot (e.g. white background fashion shot). It doesn't necessarily mean your exposure is off (though of course it still could be). This will manifest as a narrow spike left or right. The danger lies when your do have a nice smooth hump but the hump appears to be chopped off at the left or right sides and looks like a half-a-hump. Then you can be suspicious that the other half-a-hump should be there but is now gone....if you see what I mean. I would suggest use your cameras exposure meter as a first point of call, and then depending on your composition check the live histogram as a secondary step bearing in mind the composition as a whole.