Intertidal refers to that portion of the marine system, which is elevation wise above low tide but below high tide. Subtidal refers to all marine system areas below the elevation of low tide. Firmness of Substrate refers to the type of material that the organism prefers to live upon or within. It could be rock, it could be a submarine hard ground, or it could be the shell of another organism. Care must be taken when evaluating those organisms, which prefer a hard substrate for they could have been living upon a shell within a soft substrate or even upon a mobile object.
Turbidity refers to the amount of suspended sediment within the water column.
Organisms like corals, which are filter feeders are very intolerant to suspended sediment. Consider water in which one cannot see one's hand in front of their face as being very turbid. Before we can jump into the determination of the environment of deposition of a particular rock there are a few other thing to consider. First and foremost the above charts represents the habitat preferences of modern carbonate producing organisms, the key word is modern. Furthermore evolution may have had an impact for we can never be sure if the modern preference of organism was the same as it had in the past.