5

Playback Mode: Viewing, Erasing, and Protecting Photos

In This Chapter

Exploring picture playback functions

Deciphering the picture information displays

Understanding histograms

Deleting and hiding bad pictures and protecting great ones

Creating an in-camera slide show

Viewing pictures on a television set

Without question, my favorite thing about digital photography is being able to view my pictures the instant after I shoot them. No more guessing whether I captured the image or need to try again, as in the film days; no more wasting money on developing pictures that stink.

Seeing your pictures is just the start of the things you can do when you switch your camera to playback mode, though. You also can review settings you used to take the picture, display graphics that alert you to exposure problems, and add file markers that protect a picture from accidental erasure. This chapter tells you how to use all these playback features and more.

Note: Some information in this chapter applies only to still photographs; if a feature also works for movie files, I spell that out. For help with the basics of movie playback, see the end of Chapter 4.

Customizing Basic Playback Options

To switch your camera to playback mode, just press the Playback button. Then press the Multi Selector right or left to scroll through your pictures.

Later sections show you how to choose what type of data appears with your pictures and movies, how to display thumbnails of multiple image files at a time, and how to magnify a photo. But first, the next few sections explain options that affect overall playback performance, including how long your pictures appear onscreen and how they’re oriented on the monitor.

Adjusting playback timing

You can adjust the length of time that the camera displays photos as follows:

Adjust the timing of automatic playback shutoff. After you press the Playback button, the monitor turns off automatically if 10 seconds elapse without any activity. You can adjust this shutoff timing through the Monitor Off Delay option, found in the Timers/AE Lock section of the Custom Setting menu and shown on the left in Figure 5-1. Choose Playback, as shown on the right, to access the timing options, which range from 4 seconds to 10 minutes. (This setting affects still photos only; movies play in their entirety unless you pause or stop playback.) Remember that the monitor is a big battery drain, so keep the display time as short as you find practical.

Figure 5-1: You can control how long pictures are displayed before automatic monitor shutdown occurs.

  Enable instant review. You can tell the camera to display each photo for a quick review immediately after you shoot it. This feature is disabled by default; enable it through the Image Review option on the Playback menu, shown in Figure 5-2. Again, this option has no effect when you’re shooting movies; to view a movie, you must set the camera to playback mode and then press the OK button.

Figure 5-2: Head for the Playback menu to enable instant review.

Adjust the length of the instant-review period. By default, the instant-review period lasts 4 seconds, but you can adjust this timing through the Monitor Off Delay option shown in Figure 5-1. Just choose Image Review instead of Playback when you get to the right screen in the figure. Settings range from 2 seconds to 10 minutes.

Enabling automatic picture rotation

When you take a picture, the camera can record the image orientation — whether you held the camera normally, creating a horizontally oriented image, or turned the camera on its side to shoot a vertically oriented photo. This orientation data is added to the picture metadata, which is hidden data that records various camera settings.

During playback, the camera can read the orientation data and automatically rotate the image so that it appears in the upright position, as shown on the left in Figure 5-3. Or you can disable rotation, in which case vertically oriented pictures appear sideways, as shown on the right in Figure 5-3.

Figure 5-3: You can display vertically oriented pictures in their upright position (left) or sideways (right).

Official photo lingo uses the term portrait orientation to refer to vertically oriented pictures and landscape orientation to refer to horizontally oriented pictures. The terms stem from the traditional way that people and places are captured in paintings and photographs — portraits, vertically; landscapes, horizontally.

Set your rotation wishes through these menu options, shown in Figure 5-4:

Auto Image Rotation: This option, on the Setup menu, determines whether the orientation data is included in the picture file. The default setting is On; select Off to leave out the data. Note that if you do include the rotation data, the picture is also automatically rotated when you view it in Nikon ViewNX 2, the free software that ships with your camera, and in other photo programs that can read the data.

Rotate Tall: Found on the Playback menu, this option controls whether the camera pays attention to the orientation data. The default setting is On, and vertical pictures are rotated during playback.

Figure 5-4: Visit the Setup and Playback menus to enable or disable image rotation.

Regardless of these settings, movies aren’t rotated, nor are still photos rotated during the instant-review period. Also, be aware that shooting with the lens pointing directly up or down sometimes confuses the camera, causing it to record the wrong orientation data in the file.

Viewing Images in Playback Mode

Here are the basics of playback:

1. Press the Playback button.

You see the last picture you took — or if you just shot a movie, the first frame of that movie.

2. To scroll through your files, press the Multi Selector right or left.

Figure 5-5 reminds you where to find the Multi Selector as well as some other buttons that play a role in picture playback.

To begin movie playback, press OK. See Chapter 4 for full details on viewing movies.

3. To return to picture-taking mode, press the Playback button again or press the shutter button halfway and then release it.

Figure 5-5: These buttons play the largest roles in picture playback.

A few tidbits to note:

  These steps assume that the camera is set to display a single photo at a time, as shown in Figure 5-5. You can also display multiple images at a time, as explained in the next section.

By default, you see some picture data along with the photo or movie frame, as shown in Figure 5-5. To find out how to interpret the picture information and specify what data you want to see, see the upcoming section “Viewing Picture Data.” For now, just remember that you press the Multi Selector up or down to change the display style.

If the camera contains multiple memory cards or storage folders, you can specify which card or folder contains the files you want to view. Skip to the section “Choosing which images to view” to find out how.

  Through the Customize Command Dials option on the Custom Setting menu, you can set the Main command dial to scroll through pictures as well as perform some other playback operations. You can set the Sub-command dial to serve some playback duties, too. See Chapter 11 if you’re interested.

Viewing multiple images at a time

Instead of displaying each photo or movie file one at a time, you can display 4 or 9 thumbnails, as shown in Figure 5-6, or even a whopping 72 thumbnails. (Movie files are indicated by little sprocket holes along the thumbnail edges.)

Figure 5-6: You can view multiple image thumbnails at a time.

Here’s how things work in thumbnails view:

  Display thumbnails. Press the ISO button, labeled “Zoom out” in Figure 5-5, to cycle from single-picture view to 4-thumbnail view, press again to shift to 9-picture view, and press once more to bring up those itty-bitty thumbnails featured in 72-image view. One more press takes you to Calendar view, a nifty feature explained in the next section.

  Display fewer thumbnails. Pressing the Qual button takes you from Calendar view back to the standard thumbnails display or, if you’re already in that display, reduces the number of thumbnails so you can see each one at a larger size — hence the “Zoom in” label slapped on the button in Figure 5-5. Again, your first press takes you from 72 thumbnails to 9, your second press to 4 thumbnails, and your third press returns you to single-image view.

Notice the icons on these two buttons: The ISO button sports a magnifying glass with a minus sign, the universal symbol for zoom out. And the Qual button’s magnifying glass has a plus sign, reminding you that you use this button to zoom in.

Toggle between thumbnails display and full-frame view. Don’t waste time pressing the Qual button repeatedly to zoom back out to the full-frame view: Instead, just press OK. Press OK again to go back to the thumbnails display.

Scroll the display. Press the Multi Selector up and down to scroll to the next or previous screen of thumbnails. Remember that this trick is for thumbnails view only; in single-image view, pressing the Multi Selector up or down changes the data display style.

Select an image. To perform certain playback functions, such as deleting a photo, you first need to select an image. A yellow box surrounds the selected image, as shown in Figure 5-6. To select a different image, use the Multi Selector to move the highlight box over the image.

If you’re using dual memory cards, you can tell which card contains the selected photo by looking at the card icons, labeled in Figure 5-6. The icon for the current card is yellow. See the upcoming section “Choosing which images to view” for a trick you can use to jump immediately to a specific memory card or folder.

Displaying photos in Calendar view

In Calendar display mode, you see a calendar, as shown in Figure 5-7. Select a date, and you can quickly navigate to all pictures you shot that day. A thumbnail image on the calendar indicates that you took pictures on that day.

Figure 5-7: Calendar view makes it easy to view all photos shot on a particular day.

The key to navigating Calendar view is the ISO button:

1. Press the ISO button as needed to cycle through the thumbnail display modes until you reach Calendar view.

If you’re currently viewing images in full-frame view, for example, you need to press the button four times to get to Calendar view.

2. Using the Multi Selector, move the yellow highlight box over a date that contains an image.

In the left example in Figure 5-7, the 8th of April is selected. (The number of the month appears in the top-left corner of the screen.) After you select a date, the right side of the screen displays thumbnails of pictures taken on that date.

3. To view all thumbnails from the selected date, press the ISO button again.

After you press the button, the vertical thumbnail strip becomes active, as shown on the right in Figure 5-7, and you can scroll through the thumbnails by pressing the Multi Selector up and down. A highlight box appears in the thumbnail strip to indicate the currently selected image.

4. To temporarily display a larger view of the selected thumbnail, hold down the Qual button.

When you release the button, the large preview disappears, and the calendar comes back into view.

5. To jump back to the calendar and select a different date, press the ISO button again.

You can just keep pressing the button to jump between the calendar and the thumbnail strip as much as you want.

6. To exit Calendar view and return to single-image view, highlight the image you want to view in the thumbnails strip. Then press OK.

Press OK again to switch back to Calendar view.

Choosing which images to view

Your camera organizes files into folders that are assigned generic names: 100D7100, 101D7100, and so on. You can see the name of the current folder by looking at the Storage Folder option on the Shooting menu. (The default folder name appears as just 100 on that menu.) You also can create custom-numbered folders through a process outlined in Chapter 11.

During playback, which folder’s photos and movies appear depend on the Playback Folder option on the Playback menu, shown in Figure 5-8.

Figure 5-8: Specify which folder you want to view through this option.

You can choose one of three options:

D7100 (default setting): Displays all pictures and movies shot with your camera, regardless of their folder location. If you’re using two memory cards, you can access files on both cards.

All: Displays all files in all folders, even those taken with other cameras (as long as they’re in a format the camera can display). Again, files from both memory cards are displayed.

Current: Displays files contained in the folder selected as the Storage Folder option on the Shooting menu.

In single-image or thumbnails view (but not Calendar view), you can quickly jump from one memory card or folder to another:

1. Press and hold the BKT button (on the left side of the camera, just beneath the Flash button).

2. Press the Multi Selector up.

You see the screen shown on the left in Figure 5-9. You can release the BKT button and Multi Selector at this point.

3. Highlight a card slot and press right to display a list of folders on that card.

The setting of the Playback Folder option on the Playback menu determines which folders appear on the list.

4. Highlight a folder and press OK.

The menu screen disappears, and the first picture or movie in your selected folder appears.

Figure 5-9: During playback, hold down the BKT button and press the Multi Selector up to display this screen and jump to a specific folder.

Magnifying photos during playback

After displaying a photo in single-frame view, as shown on the left in Figure 5-10, you can magnify it, as shown on the right. You can zoom in on still photos only, however; this feature isn’t available for movies.

Here’s how to use the magnification function:

  Zoom in. Press the Qual button. You can magnify the image to a maximum of 19 to 38 times its original display size, depending on the resolution (pixel count) of the photo. Just keep pressing the button until you reach the magnification you want. (Notice the plus-sign magnifying glass symbol on the button, indicating zoom in.)

  Zoom out. To zoom out to a reduced magnification, press the ISO button — the one that sports the minus-sign magnifying glass. (That little gridlike thingy next to the magnifying glass reminds you that the button also comes into play when you want to go from full-frame view to one of the thumbnail views.)

Figure 5-10: Use the Multi Selector to move the yellow outline over the area you want to inspect.

View another part of the magnified picture. When an image is magnified, a small thumbnail showing the entire image appears briefly in the lower-right corner of the screen, as shown in Figure 5-10. The yellow outline in this picture-in-picture image indicates the area that’s currently consuming the rest of the monitor space. Use the Multi Selector to scroll the yellow box and display a different portion of the image. After a few seconds, the navigation thumbnail disappears; just press the Multi Selector in any direction to redisplay it.

  Inspect faces. When you magnify portraits, the picture-in-picture thumbnail displays a white border around each face. Rotate the Sub-command dial to examine each face at the magnified view. Unfortunately, the camera sometimes fails to detect faces, especially if the subject isn’t looking directly at the camera. When it works correctly, though, this is a pretty great tool for checking for closed eyes, red-eye, and, of course, spinach in the teeth.

View more images at the same magnification. While the display is zoomed, you can rotate the Main command dial to display the same area of the next photo at the same magnification.

Return to full-frame view. To return to the normal magnification level, you don’t need to keep pressing the ISO button until you’re all the way zoomed out. Instead, just press OK.

Viewing Picture Data

In single-image picture view, you can choose from a variety of display modes, all shown in Figure 5-11. Each mode presents different shooting data along with the image or movie file.

Figure 5-11: You can choose from these information display modes during picture playback.

To change the display mode, press the Multi Selector up or down. When you do this for the first time, only two display modes (File Information and Overview mode), are available, however. The others are hidden by default.

The next section shows you how to choose the display modes you want to use and also how to enable one additional display option that lets you see which focus point was used for the shot. Following that, you can find details about the data you see in each display mode, with the exception of the self-explanatory None (Image Only) mode.

Note: Information and figures in these sections relate to still photography. For help with understanding data that appears during movie playback, see the playback section of Chapter 4. Although you can view the first frame of your movie in any of the standard photo display modes, after you start playback, the movie takes over the whole screen and playback data appears as described in that part of Chapter 4.

Choosing data-display options

By default, only File Information mode and Overview mode are enabled. To access the other modes, along with an option that enables you to view the focus point that the camera used to establish focus, head for the Playback Display Options setting on the Playback menu, as shown in Figure 5-12.

Figure 5-12: These display options are disabled by default.

The menu options work as follows:

Focus Point: When this option is turned on, a red rectangle marks the focus point (or points), as shown in Figure 5-13. You also see the same brackets that represent the autofocus area in the viewfinder. These focus indicators appear only when you use the display mode shown in the figure — File Information mode, covered in the next section. They aren’t displayed if you focused manually or used the AF-C (continuous-servo) autofocusing mode setting (or the camera chose that setting for you in AF-A mode). I find the focus marks distracting, but make your own call. Chapter 8 explains these autofocusing options.

Figure 5-13: You can view the focus point you used when taking the photo.

Additional Photo Info: This section of the menu lets you enable and disable all display modes except File Information, which can’t be turned off. You have to scroll the menu screen down to access the Overview display mode, not shown in the figure.

A check mark in the box next to an option means that the feature is turned on. To toggle the check mark on and off, highlight the option and then press the Multi Selector right. After turning on the options you want to use, press OK.

The next sections explain what details you can glean from each display mode.

File Information mode

In File Information display mode, the monitor displays the data shown in Figure 5-14. Again, the illustrations here and in the upcoming sections apply to still photos; Chapter 4 helps you sort out movie playback screens.

Figure 5-14: In File Information mode, you can view these bits of data.

Here’s the key to what information appears, starting at the top of the screen and working down:

Frame Number/Total Pictures: The first value here indicates the frame number of the currently displayed photo; the second tells you the total number of pictures on the memory card.

Focus point: If you enable the Focus Point feature, as outlined in the preceding section, you may see the red focus-point indicator and the autofocus area brackets, as shown in Figure 5-13, depending on the focus settings you used when shooting the picture.

Card slot: This value tells you which memory card slot holds the card containing the picture.

Folder: Folders are named automatically by the camera unless you create custom folders, an advanced trick you can explore in Chapter 11. The first camera-created folder is named 100D7100. Each folder can contain up to 9,999 images; when you exceed that limit, the camera creates a new folder and assigns the next folder number.

Filename: The camera also automatically names your files. Filenames end with a three-letter code that represents the file format, which is either JPG (for JPEG) or NEF (for Camera Raw) for still photos. Chapter 2 discusses these formats. (If you record a movie, the file extension is MOV, which represents a digital-movie file format.)

The first four characters of filenames also vary. Here’s what the two possible codes indicate:

• DSC_: This code means you captured the photo at the default Color Space setting, sRGB. You can investigate this option in Chapter 8.

• _DSC: If you change the Color Space setting to Adobe RGB, the underscore character comes first.

Each image is also assigned a four-digit file number, starting with 0001. When you reach image 9999, the file numbering restarts at 0001, and the new images go into a new folder to prevent any possibility of overwriting the existing image files. For more information about file numbering, see the section in Chapter 1 that discusses the File Number Sequence option, found on the Custom Setting menu.

Date and Time: Just below the folder and filename info, you see the date and time that you took the picture. Of course, the accuracy of this data depends on whether you set the camera’s date and time correctly, which you do via the Setup menu.

Image Area: This symbol tells you whether the DX or 1.3x crop area of the image sensor was used to record the photo. DX is the default and records the image using the entire sensor. See the last section of Chapter 2 for an explanation of this feature.

Image Quality: Here you can see which Image Quality setting you used when taking the picture. Again, Chapter 2 has details, but the short story is this: Fine, Normal, and Basic are the three JPEG recording options, with Fine representing the highest JPEG quality. Raw refers to the Nikon Camera Raw format, NEF.

Image Size: This value tells you the image resolution, or pixel count. See Chapter 2 to find out about resolution.

In the top-left corner of the screen, you may see the following two symbols, labeled in Figure 5-15:

Figure 5-15: These symbols indicate a protected photo and a retouched photo.

Protected Status: A key icon indicates that you used the file-protection feature to prevent the image from being erased when you use the camera’s Delete function. See “Protecting Photos,” later in this chapter, to find out more. (Note: Formatting your memory card, a topic discussed in Chapter 1, does erase even protected pictures.)

Retouch indicator: This icon indicates an image that you created by applying Retouch menu options, detailed in Chapter 10, to the original photo.

Highlights display mode

One of the most difficult photo problems to correct in a photo-editing program is known as blown highlights in some circles and clipped highlights in others. Both terms mean that the brightest areas of the image are so overexposed that areas that should include a variety of light shades are instead totally white.

In Highlights display mode, areas that the camera thinks may be overexposed blink in the camera monitor. To use this mode, you must first enable it by following the instructions in the earlier “Choosing data-display options” section. Then press the Multi Selector down to shift from File Information mode to Highlights mode.

To fully understand all the features of Highlights mode, though, you need to know a little about digital imaging science. First, digital images are called RGB images because they’re created from the three primary colors of light: red, green, and blue. In Highlights mode, you can display the exposure warning for all three color components — sometimes called color channels — combined or view the data for each individual channel.

When you look at the brightness data for a single channel, though, greatly overexposed areas don’t translate to white in photos — rather, they result in a solid blob of some other color. I don’t have space in this book to provide a full lesson in RGB color theory, but the short story is that when you mix red, green, and blue light, and each component is at maximum brightness, you get white. Zero brightness in all three channels gives you black. If you have maximum red and no blue or green, you have fully saturated red. If you mix two channels at maximum brightness, you also get full saturation. For example, maximum red and blue produce fully saturated magenta. And this is why it matters: Wherever colors are fully saturated, you can lose picture detail. For example, a rose petal that should have a range of tones from light to dark red may instead be bright red throughout.

The moral of the story is that when you view your photo in single-channel display, large areas of blinking highlights in one or two channels indicate that you may be losing color details. Blinking highlights that appear in the same spot in all three channels indicate blown highlights — again, because when you have maximum red, green, and blue, you get white. Either way, you may want to adjust your exposure settings and try again.

Okay, with today’s science lesson out of the way, Figure 5-16 displays an image that contains some blown highlights to show you how things look in Highlights display mode. I captured the screen at the moment the highlight blinkies blinked “off” — the black areas in the figure indicate the blown highlights. (I labeled a few of them in the figure.) But as this image proves, just because you see the flashing alerts doesn’t mean that you should adjust exposure — the decision depends on where the alerts occur and how the rest of the image is exposed. In my candle photo, for example, there are indeed small white areas in the flames and the glass vase, yet exposure in the majority of the photo is fine. If I reduced exposure to darken those spots, some areas of the flowers would be underexposed. In other words, sometimes you simply can’t avoid a few clipped highlights when the scene includes a broad range of brightness values.

Figure 5-16: In Highlights mode, blinking areas indicate blown highlights.

In the lower-left corner of the display, the letters that appear highlighted in yellow tell you whether you’re looking at a single channel (R, G, or B) or the three-channel, composite display (RGB). The latter is selected in the figure. To cycle between the settings, press the ISO button as you press the Multi Selector right or left.

Along with the blinking highlight warning, Highlights display mode presents the Protect Status and Retouch Indicator icons if you used those features. In the upper-right corner, you see the folder number and the frame number — 100 and 95, respectively, in Figure 5-16. The label “Highlights” also appears to let you know the current display mode.

RGB Histogram mode

From Highlights mode, press the Multi Selector down to get to RGB Histogram mode, which displays your image as shown on the left in Figure 5-17. (Remember: You can access this mode only if you enable it via the Playback Display Options setting on the Playback menu.)

The data underneath the thumbnail shows the White Balance settings used for the shot. (White balance is a color feature you can explore in Chapter 8.) The first value tells you the setting (Auto1, in the figure), and the two number values tell you whether you fine-tuned that setting along the amber to blue axis (first value) or green to magenta axis (second value). Zeros, as in the figure, indicate no fine-tuning. You also see the Protect Status key and Retouch Indicator symbol if you use those features on the image.

Figure 5-17: In RGB Histogram mode, you see both a brightness histogram and an RGB histogram.

In addition, you get four charts, called histograms. You actually get two types of histograms: The top one is a Brightness histogram and reflects the composite, three-channel image data. The three others represent the data for the single red, green, and blue channels. This trio is sometimes called an RGB histogram, thus the display mode name.

The next two sections explain what information you can glean from the two types of histograms. But first, here are two quick tips:

  Highlights data: As with Highlights mode, blown highlights blink in the thumbnail, and you can view the warning for either the composite image (RGB) or each individual channel. Press the ISO button as you press the Multi Selector right to cycle between the single-channel and multichannel views. A yellow box also surrounds the histogram representing the active view. For example, the RGB composite view is active in the figure. To get rid of the blinkies, select the Blue channel and then press the Multi Selector right one more time.

  Zooming the view: Press the Qual button to zoom the thumbnail to a magnified view. The histograms then update to reflect only the magnified area of the photo. Press the Multi Selector to scroll the image display. To return to the regular view, press OK.

Reading a Brightness histogram

You can get an idea of image exposure by viewing your photo on the monitor and by looking at the blinkies in Highlights mode, but the Brightness histogram provides a way to gauge exposure that’s a little more detailed.

A Brightness histogram indicates the distribution of shadows, highlights, and midtones (areas of medium brightness) in your image. Figure 5-18 shows you the histogram for the orchid image featured in Figure 5-17, for example.

Figure 5-18: The Brightness histogram indicates tonal range, from shadows on the left to highlights on the right.

The horizontal axis of the histogram represents possible brightness values — the maximum tonal range, in photography-speak — from the darkest shadows on the left to the brightest highlights on the right. And the vertical axis shows you how many pixels fall at a particular brightness value. A spike indicates a heavy concentration of pixels at that brightness value.

There is no one “perfect” histogram that you should try to achieve. Instead, interpret the histogram with respect to the distribution of shadows, highlights, and midtones that comprise your subject. You wouldn’t expect to see lots of shadows, for example, in a photo of a polar bear walking on a snowy landscape. Pay attention, however, if you see a very high concentration of pixels at the far right or left end of the histogram, which can indicate a seriously overexposed or underexposed image, respectively. To find out how to resolve exposure problems, visit Chapter 7.

Understanding RGB histograms

In RGB Histogram display mode, you see two histograms: the Brightness histogram, covered in the preceding section, and an RGB histogram. Figure 5-19 shows you the RGB histogram for the orchid image.

As explained in the earlier section about Highlights mode, digital images are made up of red, green, and blue light. With the RGB histograms, you can view the brightness values for each of those color channels. Again, overexposure in one or two channels can produce oversaturated colors — and thus a loss of picture detail. So, if most of the pixels for one or two channels are clustered toward the right end of the histogram, adjust your exposure settings, as outlined in Chapter 7, and try again.

Figure 5-19: The RGB histogram can indicate problems with color saturation.

Photographers schooled in the science of RGB histograms can spot color-balance issues by looking at the pixel values, too. But frankly, color-balance problems are easy to notice just by looking at the image itself on the camera monitor. And understanding how to translate the histogram data for this purpose requires more knowledge about RGB color theory than I have room to present in this book.

For information about manipulating color, see Chapter 8.

Shooting Data display mode

Before you can access this mode, you must enable it via the Playback Display Options setting option on the Playback menu. See the earlier section, “Choosing data-display options,” for details.

In this mode, you can view up to four screens of information, which you toggle among by pressing the Multi Selector up and down. Figure 5-20 shows you the first two screens. The fourth screen appears only if you include copyright data with your picture, a feature you can explore in Chapter 11.

Figure 5-20: You can view the camera settings used to capture the image in Shooting Data display mode.

Most of the data here won’t make any sense to you until you explore Chapters 7 and 8, which explain the exposure, color, and other advanced settings available on your camera. Still, I want to call your attention to a couple of data points now:

The top-left corner of the monitor shows the Protected Status key and Retouch Indicator icon, if you used these features. Otherwise, the area is empty, as in the figures. See “Protecting Photos,” later in this chapter, for more about that feature; Chapter 10 presents Retouch menu options.

The current folder and frame number appear in the lower-right corner of the display, as does the Image Area setting (DX or 1.3x crop, as explained in Chapter 2).

The Comment item, which is the final item on the third screen, contains a value if you use the Image Comment feature on the Setup menu.

If the ISO value on Shooting Data Page 1 (the first screen in Figure 5-20) appears in red, the camera is letting you know that it overrode the ISO Sensitivity setting that you selected in order to produce a good exposure. This shift occurs only if you enable automatic ISO adjustment in the P, S, A, and M exposure modes; see Chapter 7 for details.

GPS Data mode

This display mode is available only if the image you’re viewing was shot with the optional Nikon GPS (Global Positioning System) unit attached. And technically, GPS Data display mode isn’t really its own, independent mode, although the camera manual describes it as such. Instead, if you took a picture with the GPS unit enabled, you see an additional screen of data when you set the display mode to Shooting Data (detailed in the preceding section). The data screen shows you the latitude, longitude, and other GPS information recorded with the image file.

Overview mode

Overview mode is the second of the two default photo-information modes — meaning that it’s already enabled on the Playback Display Options item on the Playback menu. In this mode, the playback screen contains a small image thumbnail along with scads of shooting data — although not quite as much as Shooting Data mode — plus a Brightness histogram. Figure 5-21 offers a look.

Figure 5-21: In Overview mode, you can view your picture along with the major camera settings you used to take the picture.

The earlier section “Reading a Brightness histogram” tells you what to make of that part of the screen. Just above the histogram, you see the Protected Status key and Retouch Indicator, if you used those features (not shown in the figure). The Frame Number/Total Pictures data appears at the upper-right corner of the image thumbnail. For details on that data, see the earlier section “File Information mode.”

To sort out the maze of other information, the following list breaks things down into the five rows that appear under the thumbnail and histogram. In the accompanying figures as well as in Figure 5-21, I include all possible data for the purpose of illustration; if any items don’t appear on your screen, it simply means that the relevant feature wasn’t enabled when you captured the shot:

Row 1: This row shows the exposure-related settings labeled in Figure 5-22, along with the focal length of the lens you used to take the shot. As in Shooting Data mode, the ISO value appears red if you had auto ISO override enabled in the P, S, A, or M exposure modes and the camera adjusted the ISO for you. Chapter 7 details the exposure settings; Chapter 1 introduces you to focal length.

Row 2: This row contains a few additional exposure settings, labeled in Figure 5-23. On the right end of the row, the Comment and GPS labels appear if you took advantage of those options when recording the shot. (You must switch to the Shooting Data mode to view the actual comment and GPS data.)

Row 3: The first three items on this row, labeled in Figure 5-24, relate to color options explored in Chapter 8. The second white balance value shows the amount of blue-to-amber fine-tuning adjustment; and the third, the amount of green-to-magenta adjustment (both values are 0 in the figure). The last item indicates the Active D-Lighting setting, another exposure option discussed in Chapter 7.

Rows 4 and 5: The final two rows of data (refer to Figure 5-21) show the same information you get in File Information mode, explained earlier in this chapter.

Figure 5-22: Here you can inspect major exposure settings along with the lens focal length.

Figure 5-23: This row contains additional exposure information.

Figure 5-24: Look at this row for details about advanced color settings.

Deleting Photos

You can erase pictures from a memory card when it’s in your camera in three ways. The next sections give you the lowdown.

Regardless of which delete technique you want to use, you can’t delete photos that you protected or hid by using the Protect or Hide Image features. Later sections in this chapter explain both features and show you how to unprotect and unhide images so that you can delete them.

Deleting images one at a time

The Delete button is key to erasing single images, but the process varies depending on which playback display mode you’re using, as follows:

In single-image view, press the Delete button.

In thumbnail view (displaying 4, 9, or 72 thumbnails), use the Multi Selector to highlight the picture you want to erase and then press Delete.

In Calendar view, highlight an image in the thumbnail strip and press Delete.

After you press Delete, you see a message asking whether you want to erase the picture. If you do, press the Delete button again. Or, to cancel out of the process, press the Playback button.

If you really want to get down into your camera’s customization weeds — and I do believe this is about as weedy as it gets — you can control which picture the camera displays after you delete the current picture. The option — After Delete — lives on the Playback menu. Select the option and press OK to access your choices: Show Next displays the picture after the one you just deleted (the default option); Show Previous displays the one that fell before the one you deleted, and Continue as Before tells the camera to keep going in the same direction you were heading before deleting. For example, if you were scrolling forward through your pictures, the camera continues playback in that direction. Wow, now that’s control. Have you thought about getting some help for that?

Deleting all photos

Erasing all pictures on a memory card is a five-step process:

1. Open the Playback menu and select Delete, as shown on the left in Figure 5-25.

Figure 5-25: You can quickly delete all photos from a memory card.

2. Press OK to display the right screen in Figure 5-25.

3. Highlight All and press the Multi Selector right.

4. On the next screen, highlight the memory card that contains the pictures you want to dump and press OK.

You then see a screen that asks you to verify that you want to delete all your images.

5. Highlight Yes and press OK.

This step deletes only pictures in the folder that’s currently selected via the Playback Folder option on the Playback menu. See the section “Choosing which images to view,” earlier in this chapter, for information.

Also remember that deleting photos in this way does not erase any pictures that you protected using the Protect feature or hid from display by using the Hide Image option, both described later in this chapter.

Deleting a batch of selected photos

To erase multiple photos — but not all — display the Playback menu, highlight Delete, and press OK. You see the Delete screen shown on the left in Figure 5-26. You then have two options for specifying which photos to erase:

  Select photos one by one. To go this route, highlight Selected, as shown on the left in Figure 5-26, and press the Multi Selector right to display a screen of thumbnails, as shown on the right. Use the Multi Selector to place the yellow highlight box over the first photo you want to delete and then press the ISO button. A little trash can icon, the universal symbol for delete, appears in the upper-right corner of the thumbnail, as shown in the figure.

Figure 5-26: Choose this option to tag specific photos for deletion.

If you change your mind, press the ISO button again to remove the Delete tag from the image. To undo deletion for all selected photos, press the Playback button.

A couple of tips to remember:

• For a closer look at the selected image, press and hold the Qual button. When you release the button, the display returns to normal thumbnail view.

• If you have two memory cards installed, the card icon that appears yellow in the upper-left corner of the screen is the selected card. You can use the same technique available during playback to jump between cards and folders: Press the BKT button and press the Multi Selector up to get the screen where you can select a card. Highlight the card, press the Multi Selector right to display the list of folders on the card, and select the one you want to view. Press OK to return to the screen where you tag pictures for deletion. The first photo in your chosen folder is automatically selected. Remember that the folders that appear when you use this option depend on the setting you choose for the Playback Folder option, as covered in the earlier section “Choosing which images to view.”

Erase all photos taken on a specific date. To dump all pictures you shot on a particular day, choose Select Date from the main Delete screen, as shown on the left in Figure 5-27. Press the Multi Selector right to display a list of dates on which you took the pictures on the memory card, as shown on the right in the figure.

Next, highlight a date and press the Multi Selector right. A little check mark appears in the box next to the date, as shown in Figure 5-27, tagging all images taken on that day for deletion. To remove the check mark and save the photos from the digital dumpster, press the Multi Selector right again.

Figure 5-27: With the Select Date option, you can quickly erase all photos taken on a specific date.

Can’t remember what photos are associated with the selected date? Try these tricks:

• To display thumbnails of all images taken on the selected date, press the ISO button.

• To temporarily view the selected thumbnail at full-size view, press the Qual button.

• To return to the date list, press the ISO button again.

After tagging individual photos for deletion or specifying a shooting date to delete, press OK to start the Delete process. You see a confirmation screen asking permission to destroy the images; select Yes and press OK. The camera trashes the photos and returns you to the Playback menu.

You have one alternative way to quickly erase all images taken on a specific date: In the Calendar display mode, you can highlight the date in question and then press the Delete button instead of going through the Playback menu. You get the standard confirmation screen asking you whether you want to go forward. Press the Delete button again to dump the files. Visit the section “Displaying photos in Calendar view,” earlier in this chapter, for the scoop on that display option.

As with the Delete All option, you can’t delete protected or hidden photos using any of these techniques. For more about protecting and hiding photos, see the next two sections.

Hiding Photos during Playback

Suppose that you took 100 pictures — 50 at a business meeting and 50 at the wild after-meeting party. You want to show your boss the photos where you and your co-workers look like responsible adults, but you’d rather not share the ones showing you and your assistant dancing on the conference table. You can always delete the party photos; the preceding section shows you how. But if you want to keep them — you never know when a good blackmail picture will come in handy — you can simply hide the incriminating images during playback.

The key to this trick is the Hide Image option on the Playback menu. After highlighting the option, as shown on the left in Figure 5-28, press OK to display the right screen in the figure.

Figure 5-28: The Hide Image function lets you prevent photos from appearing during normal picture playback.

From here, things work pretty much the same as they do for marking a picture for deletion, covered in the preceding section:

  Select and hide photos one by one: Choose Select/Set, as shown on the right in Figure 5-28, to display thumbnails of your images. Highlight the picture you want to hide and then press the ISO button to tag the photo with the little hide marker, as shown on the left in Figure 5-29.

You can use the same techniques as outlined in the preceding section to jump between memory cards and folders and get a larger view of the selected photo.

After you tag all the images you want to hide, press OK to return to the Playback menu. Your pictures are now hidden.

Select and hide all photos taken on a specific date: On the screen shown on the right in Figure 5-28, choose Select Date and press the Multi Selector right. Now you see a list of dates, as shown on the right in Figure 5-29. Highlight the date that contains the photos you want to hide, and then press right to put a check in the box to the left of the date. Again, the tricks that work for deleting photos by date work here, too; see the preceding section for details. Press OK to finalize the process.

Figure 5-29: You can select photos one by one (left) or by date (right).

A couple of fine points about this feature:

Hidden images remain viewable from within the Hide Image screens. In other words, if you travel back to the Hide Image menu and choose the Select/Set or Select Date option, you see thumbnails for your hidden images along with those that aren’t hidden.

To redisplay hidden pictures, just reverse the process, removing the hide marker from photos you want to view again. Or, to redisplay all hidden pictures quickly, choose Deselect All from the first Hide Image screen (the right screen in Figure 5-28).

  If you protected a photo before hiding it, redisplaying the picture removes its protected status.

Before you can delete hidden photos, you first need to remove the Hide Image tags. Or you can format your memory card, which wipes out all photos, hidden or not. To format the card, choose the Format Memory Card option from the Setup menu.

Protecting Photos

You can safeguard pictures from accidental erasure by giving them protected status. After you take this step, the camera doesn’t allow you to erase a picture by using the Delete button or the Delete option on the Playback menu.

Formatting your memory card, however, does erase even protected pictures. In addition, when you protect a picture, it shows up as a read-only file when you transfer it to your computer. Files that have that read-only status can’t be altered until you unlock them in your photo software. In Nikon ViewNX 2, the software that ships with your camera, you can do this by clicking the image thumbnail and then choosing File⇒Protect Files⇒Unprotect.

Protecting a picture is easy:

1. Display or select the picture you want to protect.

• In single-image view, just display the photo.

• In 4/9/72 thumbnail mode, use the Multi Selector as needed to place the yellow highlight box over the photo.

• In Calendar view, highlight the image in the strip of thumbnails that appears on the right side of the screen. (Press the ISO button to jump between the calendar dates and the thumbnails.)

2. Press the WB button.

See the key symbol on the button? That’s your reminder that you use the button to lock a picture. The same symbol appears on protected photos during playback, as shown in Figure 5-30.

Figure 5-30: Press the WB button to prevent accidental deletion of the selected image.

3. To remove protection, display or select the image and then press the WB button again.

Creating a Slide Show

The Slide Show feature sets the camera to automatically display all photos and movies one by one on the camera monitor. Before I show you the steps, note these details:

Pictures displayed in the show depend on the setting of the Playback Folder option on the Playback menu. For more about choosing which folder (and which memory card, if you’re using two at a time) you want to view, see “Choosing which images to view,” earlier in this chapter.

Any pictures that you hid through the Hide Image function, also explained earlier in this chapter, do not appear in the show.

To set up and run your show, walk this way:

1. Display the Playback menu and highlight Slide Show, as shown on the left in Figure 5-31.

Scroll to the second screen of the menu to access this option.

2. Press OK to display the screen shown on the right in Figure 5-31.

This screen is where you set the playback options for your show.

Figure 5-31: Choose Slide Show (left) and press OK to access slide show options (right).

3. Highlight Image Type, as shown on the right in Figure 5-31, and press the Multi Selector right.

You’re taken to a screen where you can choose to include both movies and still photos, just movies, or just photos in the show.

4. Select the image types you want to include and press OK.

You return to the slide show setup screen.

5. If you chose Movies Only in Step 4, skip to Step 8.

6. Highlight Frame Interval and press the Multi Selector right.

This option determines how long each photo appears. Intervals range from 2 to 10 seconds. Again, this option doesn’t affect movies; the entire movie is always played during the slide show.

7. Highlight the frame interval you want to use and press OK.

Back you go to the slide show setup screen.

8. Highlight Start and press OK.

Your slide show starts playing on the camera monitor.

When the show ends, you see a screen offering four options: You can choose to restart the show, adjust the frame interval, or exit to the Playback menu. Highlight your choice and press OK.

During the show, you can control playback as follows:

Pause the show. Press OK. Select Restart and press OK to display pictures again. When you pause the slide show, you also can change the frame interval — a handy option if the pace is too quick or slow — or exit the show. Just highlight your choice and press OK. If you adjust the timing, resume playback by choosing Restart and pressing OK.

Adjust movie volume. If your slide show contains movies with soundtracks, you can use the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons to adjust the volume:

• Increase volume. Press the Qual button.

• Decrease volume. Press the ISO button.

Exit the show. You have three options:

• To return to regular playback, press the Playback button.

• To return to the Playback menu, press the Menu button.

• To return to picture-taking mode, press the shutter button halfway and release it.

Skip to the next/previous image manually. Press the Multi Selector right or left.

Change the information displayed with the image. Press the Multi Selector up or down to cycle through the info-display modes. (See the earlier section “Viewing Picture Data” for details on what information is provided in each mode.)

Viewing Your Photos on a Television

You can connect your camera to an HDTV (high-definition television) and view your pictures and movies on that screen. To take advantage of this option, you need a Type C mini-pin HD cable to connect the camera and TV. Before making the connection, visit the Setup menu and explore the HDMI option, shown in Figure 5-32, which offers the following two settings:

Figure 5-32: Select options for HD playback here.

Output Resolution: By default, the camera decides the proper video resolution to send to the TV after you connect the two devices. Through this setting, though, you can choose from five specific output resolutions.

Device Control: If your television is compatible with a feature that goes by the name HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control), you can use the buttons on the TV’s remote control to perform the functions of the OK button and Multi Selector during full-frame picture playback and slide shows. To make this feature work, set the Device Control option to On.

After you select the necessary HDMI options, grab your video cable, turn off the camera, and then insert the smaller end of the HDMI cable into the HDMI-out port, labeled in Figure 5-33. The port lives under the middle rubber cover on the left side of the camera.

Figure 5-33: The HDMI port is located under the middle rubber door on the side of the camera.

At this point, I need to point you to your TV manual to find out how to connect the other end of the cable to the set itself. You also need to consult your manual to find out which channel to select for playback of signals from auxiliary input devices. Then just turn on your camera to send the signal to the TV set. If you don’t have the latest and greatest HDMI CEC capability (or lost your remote), control playback using the same techniques as you normally do to view pictures on your camera monitor. You can also run a slide show by following the steps outlined in the preceding section.