Ten Features of Nikon D300s to Explore on a Rainy Day

In This Chapter

Removing red-eye
Tweaking exposure and color
Adding artistic effects
Cropping away excess background
Experimenting with time-lapse photography
Consider this chapter the literary equivalent of the end of one of those late-night infomercial offers — the part where the host exclaims, “But wait! There’s more!”
The features covered in these pages fit the category of “interesting bonus.” They aren’t the sort of features that drive people to choose one camera over another, and they may come in handy only for certain users, on certain occasions. Still, they’re included at no extra charge with your camera purchase, so check ‘em out when you have a few spare moments. Who knows; you may discover that one of these features is actually a hidden gem that provides just the solution you need for one of your photography problems.

Applying the Retouch Menu filters

Many of the features described in this chapter live on the Retouch menu, so I want to give you a brief overview of how these menu options work.
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When you apply a correction or enhancement from the Retouch menu, the camera creates a copy of your original photo and then makes the changes to the copy only. Your original is preserved untouched.


You can get to the Retouch menu features in two ways:

Display the menu, select the tool you want to use, and press OK. You’re then presented with thumbnails of your photos. Use the Multi Selector to move the yellow highlight box over the photo you want to adjust and press OK. You next see options related to the selected tool.
Switch the camera to playback mode, display your photo in single-frame view, and press OK. (Remember, you can shift from thumbnail display to single-frame view simply by pressing the OK button.) The Retouch menu
then appears superimposed over your photo, as shown in Figure 11-1. Select the tool you want to use and press OK again to access the tool options. I prefer the second method, so that’s how I approach things in this chapter, but it’s entirely a personal choice.
However, you can’t use this method for one Retouch menu option: Image Overlay, which combines two photos to create a third, blended image, requires you to use the first method of accessing the menu.
In single-frame playback view, just press OK to bring up the Retouch menu.
Figure 11-1: In single-frame playback view, just press OK to bring up the Retouch menu.
A few other critical factoids to note before you begin experimenting with the Retouch menu tools:
The Image Overlay feature works only with NEF (RAW) files. The resulting picture is also saved in the NEF format. Chapter 3 explains the NEF file type; Chapter 8 shows you how to convert a RAW file to a standard file format.
All other menu options work with JPEG, TIFF, or NEF originals, but the edited file is saved in the JPEG format. Again, see Chapter 3 for help understanding file formats.
File numbers of retouched copies don’t match those of the originals.
Make note of the filename the retouched version is assigned so that you can easily track it down later. What numbering the camera chooses depends on the numbers of the files already on your memory card.
You can compare the original and the retouched version through the Side-by-Side menu option. To use this feature, start by displaying either the original or the retouched version in full-frame playback. Then press OK, select Side-by-Side Comparison, as shown on the left in Figure 11-2, and press OK again. Now you see the original image on one side and the retouched version on the other, as shown in the second screen in the figure. At the top of the screen, labels indicate the Retouch tool that you applied to the photo. (I applied the Monochrome filter in Figure 11-2.)
 Use the Side-by-Side Comparison option to see whether you prefer the retouched version of a photo to the original.
Figure 11-2: Use the Side-by-Side Comparison option to see whether you prefer the retouched version of a photo to the original.

These additional tricks work in Side-by-Side display:

• If you applied more than one Retouch tool to the picture, press the Multi Selector right and left to display individual thumbnails that show how each tool affected the picture.
• If you create multiple retouched versions of the same original — for example, if you create a monochrome version, save that, and then crop the original image and save that — you use a different technique to compare all the versions. First, press the Multi Selector right or left to surround the After image with the yellow highlight box. Now press the Multi Selector up and down to scroll through all the retouched versions.
• To temporarily view the original or retouched image at full-frame view, use the Multi Selector to highlight its thumbnail and then press and hold the Zoom In button. Release the button to return to side-by-side view.
To exit side-by-side view and return to single-image playback, press the Playback button.

Removing Red-Eye

From my experience, red-eye is not a major problem with the D300s. Typically, the problem occurs only in very dark lighting, which makes sense: When little ambient light is available, the pupils of the subjects’ eyes widen, creating more potential for the flash light to cause red-eye reflection.

If you spot a red-eye problem, however, give the Red-Eye Correction filter a try:

1. Display your photo in single-image view and press OK.
The Retouch menu appears over your photo.
2. Highlight Red-Eye Correction and press OK.
If the camera detects red-eye, it applies the removal filter and displays the results in the monitor. If the camera can’t find any red-eye, it displays a message telling you so.
Note that the Red-Eye Correction option appears dimmed in the menu for photos taken without flash.
3. Carefully inspect the repair.
Press the Zoom In button to magnify the display so that you can check the camera’s work, as shown in Figure 11-3. To scroll the display, press the Multi Selector up, down, right, or left. The yellow box in the tiny navigation window in the lower-right corner of the screen indicates the area of the picture that you’re currently viewing.
4. If you approve of the correction, press OK twice.
Zoom in to magnify the image and check the red-eye repair.
Figure 11-3: Zoom in to magnify the image and check the red-eye repair.
The first OK returns the display to normal magnification; the second creates the retouched copy.
5. If you’re not happy with the results, press OK to return to normal magnification. Then press the Playback button to cancel the repair.
If the in-camera red-eye repair fails you, most photo editing programs have red-eye removal tools that should enable you to get the job done. Unfortunately, no red-eye remover works on animal eyes. Red-eye removal tools know how to detect and replace only red-eye pixels, and animal eyes typically turn yellow, white, or green in response to a flash. The easiest solution is to use the paintbrush tool found in most photo editors to paint in the proper eye colors.

Shadow Recovery with D-Lighting

Chapter 5 introduces you to a feature called Active D-Lighting. If you turn on this option when you shoot a picture, the camera captures the image in a way that brightens the darkest parts of the image, bringing shadow detail into the light, while leaving highlight details intact. It’s a great trick for dealing with high-contrast scenes or subjects that are backlit.
You also can apply a similar adjustment after you take a picture by choosing the D-Lighting option on the Retouch menu. I did just that for the photo in Figure 11-4, where strong backlighting left the balloon underexposed in the original image.
An underexposed photo (left) gets help from the D-Lighting filter (right).
Figure 11-4: An underexposed photo (left) gets help from the D-Lighting filter (right).

Here’s how to apply the filter:

1. Display your photo in single-image mode and then press OK to display the Retouch menu.
2. Highlight D-Lighting, as shown on the left in Figure 11-5, and press OK.
You see a thumbnail of your original image along with an after thumbnail, as shown in the second image in Figure 11-5.
3. Select the level of adjustment by pressing the Multi Selector up or down.
You get three levels: Low, Normal, and High. I used High for the repair to my balloon image.
To get a closer view of the adjusted photo, press and hold the Zoom In button. Release the button to return to the two-thumbnail display.
4. To go forward with the correction, press OK.
The camera creates your retouched copy.
Apply the D-Lighting filter via the Retouch menu.
Figure 11-5: Apply the D-Lighting filter via the Retouch menu.
You can’t apply D-Lighting to an image if you captured the photo with the Picture Control feature set to Monochrome. (See Chapter 6 for details on Picture Controls.) Nor does D-Lighting work on any pictures to which you’ve applied the Monochrome filter, detailed a little later in this chapter.

Two Ways to Tweak Color

Chapter 6 explains how to use your camera’s White Balance and Picture Control features to manipulate photo colors. But even if you play with those settings all day, you may wind up with colors that you’d like to tweak just a tad. The Retouch menu offers two different tools for doing so: Through the Filter Effects option, you can apply a subtle warming effect, and through the Color Balance option, you can shift colors toward any part of the color spectrum and make a more pronounced color adjustment.
As an example, Figure 11-6 shows you an original image and three adjusted versions. As you can see, the Skylight and Warm filters are both very subtle; in this image, the effects are most noticeable in the sky. The fourth example shows a variation created by using the Color Balance filter and shifting colors toward the cool (bluish) side of the color spectrum.
To apply either filter, start by displaying your photo in single-frame playback mode and then press OK to display the Retouch menu over the photo. From there, proceed like so:
‘ Filter Effects: Select this filter, as shown on the left in Figure 11-7, and press OK to display the right screen. Choose Skylight to apply a subtle warming effect, similar to what you can produce by placing a traditional skylight filter over your lens. For a stronger — but still pretty subtle — warming effect, choose Warm instead. Press OK to display a preview of the effect. If you like what you see, press OK again to create the warmed-up copy of the photo.
 Here you see the results of applying two Filter Effects adjustments and a Color Balance shift.
Figure 11-6: Here you see the results of applying two Filter Effects adjustments and a Color Balance shift.
Both of these filters produce a slight warming effect; Warm creates a more pronounced result.
Figure 11-7: Both of these filters produce a slight warming effect; Warm creates a more pronounced result.
Color Balance: Through this filter, featured in Figure 11-8, you can gain much more control over color adjustments. After you select the filter and press OK, you see a screen with a little color grid, as shown on the right in the figure.
When the little black box is in the center of the grid, as in the figure, no color-balance adjustment has been applied. To manipulate colors, use the Multi Selector to move the black square in the direction of the color adjustment you want to make. The histograms on the right side of the display show you the resulting impact on overall image brightness, as well as on the individual red, green, and blue brightness values — a bit of information that’s helpful if you’re an experienced student in the science of reading histograms. (Chapter 4 gives you an introduction.) If not, just check the image preview to monitor your results. Press OK to create the color-adjusted copy of your photo.
Press the Multi Selector to move the color-shift marker and adjust color balance.
Figure 11-8: Press the Multi Selector to move the color-shift marker and adjust color balance.

Creating Monochrome Photos

With the Monochrome Picture Control feature covered in Chapter 6, you can shoot black-and-white photos. Technically, the camera takes a full-color picture and then strips it of color as it’s recording the image to the memory card, but the end result is the same.
As an alternative, you can create a black-and-white copy of an existing color photo by applying the Monochrome option on the Retouch menu. You can also create sepia and cyanotype (blue and white) images via the Monochrome option. Figure 11-9 shows you examples of all three effects.
I prefer to convert my color photos to monochrome images in my photo editor; going that route simply offers more control, not to mention the fact that it’s easier to preview your results on a large computer monitor than on
the camera monitor. Still, I know that not everyone’s as much of a photo editing geek as I am, so I present to you here the steps involved in applying the Monochrome effects to a color original in your camera:
1. Display your photo in single-image view and press OK to bring the Retouch menu to life.
2. Highlight Monochrome and press OK to display the three effect options, as shown in Figure 11-10.
3. Highlight the effect that you want to apply and press OK.
You then see a preview of the image with your selected photo filter applied.
4. To adjust the intensity of the sepia or cyano-type effect, press the
You can create three monochrome effects through the Retouch menu.
Figure 11-9: You can create three monochrome effects through the Retouch menu.
Multi Selector up or down.
No adjustment is available for the black-and-white filter.
5. Press OK to create the monochrome copy.
Select the filter you want to apply and press OK.
Figure 11-10: Select the filter you want to apply and press OK.

Cropping Your Photo

To crop a photo simply means to trim away some of its perimeter. Cropping away excess background can often improve an image, as illustrated by Figures 11-11 and 11-12. When shooting this scene, I couldn’t get close enough to the ducks to fill the frame with them, so I simply cropped it after the fact to achieve the desired composition.
The original contains too much extraneous background.
Figure 11-11: The original contains too much extraneous background.
Cropping creates a better composition and eliminates background clutter.
Figure 11-12: Cropping creates a better composition and eliminates background clutter.
With the Trim function on the Retouch menu, you can crop a photo right in the camera. Note a few things about this feature:
You can crop your photo to five different aspect ratios: 3:2, which maintains the original proportions and matches that of a 4 x 6-inch print; 4:3, the proportions of a standard computer monitor or television (that is, not a wide-screen model); 5:4, which gives you the same proportions as an 8 x 10-inch print; 1:1, which results in a square photo; and 16:9, which is the same aspect ratio as images on a wide-screen movie. If your purpose for cropping is to prepare your image for a frame size that doesn’t match any of these aspect ratios, crop in your photo software instead.
For each aspect ratio, you can choose from six crop sizes. The sizes are stated in pixel terms — for example, if you select the 3:2 aspect ratio, you can crop the photo to measurements of 3424 x 2280 pixels, 2560 x 1704 pixels, 1920 x 1280 pixels, 1280 x 856 pixels, 960 x 640 pixels, and 640 x 424 pixels.
After you apply the Trim function, you can’t apply any other fixes from the Retouch menu. So make cropping the last of your retouching steps.

Keeping those caveats in mind, trim your image as follows:

1. Display your photo in single-image view and press OK to launch the Retouch menu.
2. Highlight Trim, as shown on the left in Figure 11-13, and press OK.
Now you see a screen similar to the right side of the figure. The yellow highlight box indicates the current cropping frame. Anything outside the frame is set to be trimmed away.
Rotate the main command dial to change the proportions of the crop box.
Figure 11-13: Rotate the main command dial to change the proportions of the crop box.
3. Rotate the main command dial to change the crop aspect ratio.
The selected aspect ratio appears in the upper-right corner of the screen, as shown in Figure 11-13.
4. Adjust the cropping frame size and placement as needed.
The current crop size appears in the upper-left corner of the screen. (Refer to Figure 11-13.) You can adjust the size and placement of the cropping frame like so:
• Reduce the size of the cropping frame. Press and release the Zoom Out button. Each press of the button further reduces the crop size.
• Enlarge the cropping frame. Press the Zoom In button to expand the crop boundary and leave more of your image intact.
• Reposition the cropping frame. Press the Multi Selector up, down, right, and left to shift the frame position.
5. Press OK to create your cropped copy of the original image.
Two Roads to a Multi-Image Exposure
The D300s offers two features that enable you to combine multiple photographs into one:
Multiple Exposure (Shooting menu): With this option, you can combine your next two to ten shots. After you enable the option and take your shots, the camera merges them into one NEF (RAW) file. The shots used to create the composite aren’t recorded and saved separately.
Image Overlay (Retouch menu): This option enables you to merge two RAW images that already exist on the memory card. I used this option to combine a photo of a werewolf friend, shown on the top left in Figure 11-14, with a nighttime garden scene, shown on the top right. The result is the ghostly image shown beneath the two originals. Oooh, scary!
On the surface, both options sound kind of cool. The problem is that you can’t control the opacity or positioning of the individual images in the combined photo. For example, my overlay picture would have been more successful if I could move the werewolf to the left in the combined image so that he and the lantern aren’t blended. And I’d also prefer to keep the background of image 2 at full opacity in the overlay image rather than getting a 50-50 mix of that background and the one in image 1, which only creates a fuzzy looking background in this particular example.
Image Overlay merges two RAW (NEF) photos into one.
Figure 11-14: Image Overlay merges two RAW (NEF) photos into one.
However, there is one effect that you can create successfully with either option: a “two views” composite like the one in Figure 11-15. For this image, I used Image Overlay to combine the front and rear views of the antique match striker. But in order for this trick to work, the background in both images must be the same solid color (black seems to be best) and you must compose your photos so that the subjects don’t overlap in the combined photo, as shown here. Otherwise, you get the ghostly portrait effect like what you see in my example.
To be honest, I don’t use Image Overlay or Multiple Exposure for the purpose of serious photo compositing. I prefer to do this kind of work in my photo editing software, where I have more control over the blend. Understand, too, that neither feature is designed to produce an HDR (high dynamic range) image, which lifts different brightness ranges from different images to create the composite. For HDR, you need software that can do tone mapping, not just whole-image blending. (See the Chapter 5 section related to exposure bracketing for more about HDR.)
If you want each subject to appear solid, use a black background and position the subjects so that they don't overlap.
Figure 11-15: If you want each subject to appear solid, use a black background and position the subjects so that they don’t overlap.
In the interest of reserving space in this topic for features that I think you will find much more useful, I leave you to explore these two on your own. (The manual explains the steps involved in using each of them.) Again, though, I think that you’ll find photo compositing much easier and much more flexible if you do the job in your photo editing software.

Exploring Automated Time-Lapse Photography

You can use the Interval Timer Shooting feature to automatically capture a series of pictures over a given period of time. The common photo lingo for this type of capture is time-lapse photography. Here’s how to do it:
1. Set the Release mode to any setting but Self-Timer or Mirror Up.
Those modes aren’t compatible with interval-timing shooting.
2. Display the Shooting menu, highlight Interval Timer Shooting as shown on the left in Figure 11-16, and press OK.
The screen on the right in Figure 11-16 appears.
3. To begin setting up your capture session, highlight Now or Start Time.
• If you want to start the captures right away, highlight Now, as shown on the right in Figure 11-16.
• To set a later start time for the captures, highlight Start Time.
The Interval Timing feature enables you to do time-lapse photography.
Figure 11-16: The Interval Timing feature enables you to do time-lapse photography.
4. Press the Multi Selector right to display the capture-setup screen.
If you selected Start Time in Step 3, the screen looks like the one in Figure 11-17. If you selected Now, the Start Time option is dimmed, and the Interval option is highlighted instead.
5. Set up your recording session.
Press the Multi Selector right or left to cycle through the setup options; press up or down to change the highlighted value.
Figure 11-17: Press the Multi Selector right or left to cycle through the setup options; press up or down to change the highlighted value.
You get three options: Start Time, Interval (time between shots), and Number of Intervals and Number of Shots per Interval (determines total number of shots recorded). The current settings for each option appear in the bottom half of the screen, as labeled in Figure 11-17.
At the top of the screen, little value boxes appear. The highlighted box is the active option and relates to the setting that’s highlighted at the bottom of the screen. For example, in the figure, the hour box for the Start Time setting is active. Press the Multi Selector right or left to cycle through the value boxes; to change the value in a box, press the Multi Selector up or down.

A few notes about your options:

• The Interval and Start Time options are based on a 24-hour clock. (The current time appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen and is based upon the date/time information you entered when setting up the camera.)
• For the Interval option, the left column box is for the hour setting; the middle, minutes; and the right, seconds. Make sure that the value you enter is longer than the shutter speed you plan to use.
• For the Start Time option, you can set the hour and minute values only. Again, the Start Time option is available only if you selected Start Time in Step 3.
• The Number of Intervals value multiplied by the Number of Shots per interval determines how many pictures will be recorded.
6. When you’re done setting up the capture options, press the Multi Selector right until you see the On and Off options on the screen, as shown in Figure 11-18.
7. Highlight On and press OK.
If you selected Now as your interval-capture starting option, the first shot is recorded about three seconds later. If you set a delayed start time, the camera displays a “Timer Active” message for a few seconds and before returning to the Shooting menu.
Highlight On and press OK to finalize the Interval Timing setup.
Figure 11-18: Highlight On and press OK to finalize the Interval Timing setup.

A few final factoids:

Interrupting interval shooting: Just press the OK button between intervals or bring up the Interval Timing menu screen, highlight Start/Pause, and press OK. If you later want to resume the interval shooting, highlight Restart and press OK. To cancel interval timing altogether, select Start/ Off and press OK.
Bracketing: You can apply automatic bracketing during interval shooting. See Chapter 5 to find out what bracketing is all about.
Autofocusing: If you’re using autofocusing, be sure that the camera can focus on your subject. It will initiate focusing before each shot, and by default, won’t record a picture if focusing can’t be achieved. See Chapter 6 for details about autofocusing.

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