Chapter 9
IN THIS CHAPTER
Rating photos and videos
Protecting files from being edited or erased
Deleting files
Downloading files to your computer
Processing Raw files
Shrinking files for online use
Every creative pursuit involves its share of cleanup and organizational tasks. Painters have to wash brushes, embroiderers have to separate strands of floss, and woodcrafters have to haul out the wet/dry vac to suck up sawdust. Digital photography is no different: At some point, you have to stop shooting so that you can download and process your files.
This chapter explains these after-the-shot tasks. First up is a review of three in-camera operations: rating files, protecting your best work from accidental erasure, and deleting unwanted files. Following that, you can get help with transferring files to your computer, processing files that you shot in the Raw (NEF) format, and preparing photos for online sharing.
While a picture or movie file is still on the memory card in your camera, you can assign it a rating: five stars for your best efforts, four stars for shots you may be able to improve in a photo editor, and so on. You can even assign a trash rating to files that you may decide to delete later.
Before showing you how to rate files, I need to share one rule: If you previously used the Protect feature described in the next section to lock a file, you can’t rate it. To unlock the file, display it and press the Protect button.
You can access the Rating feature in two ways:
i menu: During playback, display the photo or video you want to rate, press the i button, and then choose Rating from the i menu, as shown on the left in Figure 9-1. On the next screen, notice the rating bar, labeled on the right in the figure. Press the Multi Selector right or left to set the number of stars. You also can tap on the bar or rotate the Main command dial to add or remove stars.
To remove a rating, press the Multi Selector left until all the stars disappear from the rating bar and you reach the dot labeled No Rating in the figure. To assign the trash rating, press left once more; a trash can replaces the No Rating dot. When you’re done assigning a rating, tap OK Done or press the OK button.
Playback menu: You can use this option during shooting or playback. Open the Playback menu and choose Rating, as shown on the left in Figure 9-2. You then see thumbnails of your images, as shown on the right side of the figure. Select the photo or video you want to rate by tapping it or by pressing the Multi Selector left or right to move the yellow selection box over the file’s thumbnail.
To assign a rating, press the Multi Selector up. Each press raises the rating by one star. The current rating appears with the thumbnail, as labeled in the figure. To lower the rating or assign the trash rating, press the Multi Selector down.
You also tap the Set symbol at the bottom of the screen to assign a star rating. Each tap raises the rating. But you can’t lower the rating or remove it by tapping. You also can't get to the trash rating. So take a hint from Nikon’s exclusion of this method from the user manual: Just stick with using the Multi Selector to set the rating.
Remember these additional points about rating photos by way of the Playback menu:
The rating you assign appears with the image in any playback display mode except None (Picture Only). Figure 9-3 shows the rating as it appears in the default playback display mode; for more about display modes, see Chapter 8.
You can safeguard files from being accidentally erased by using the camera’s Protect feature, which locks the file.
Giving a file protected status also prevents you from altering it by using the camera’s built-in editing tools, found on the Retouch menu. Nor can you assign a rating. So do any of that work before locking the file.
To protect a picture, display it in full-screen view and then press the Protect button, (also known as the AE-L/AF-L button), highlighted in Figure 9-4. The same key symbol that you see next to the button appears on the photo, as shown in the figure. Press the button again to unlock the photo. In Thumbnail view or Calendar view, select the picture as explained in Chapter 8 and then press the Protect button.
Although using the Protect/AE-L/AF-L button is the fastest route to locking and unlocking a single file, you can also press the i button and choose Protect from the playback version of the i menu, as shown in Figure 9-5.
To unlock all protected files in the folder being viewed — which is determined by the Playback Folder setting on the Playback menu — choose Unprotect All from the playback version of the i menu, shown in Figure 9-5. When you see a message asking whether you want to remove protection from all files, press the Delete button or tap Yes on the screen.
One last bit of protection info: When you protect a file, it may show up as a read-only file when you transfer it to your computer, depending on whether the software you use can read the protection tag. Files that have the read-only status can’t be altered until you unlock them. To take that step in Nikon NX Studio, which is the photo software introduced later in this chapter, open the Image menu, choose Protection, and then select Unprotect.
Your camera’s Delete function makes it easy to erase files from a memory card when it’s in your camera. The next few sections give you the lowdown on various ways to use the feature.
During picture playback, you can press the Delete button to erase individual photos and videos. But the process varies depending on the display mode:
After you press Delete, you’re asked to confirm that you want to erase the file. If you do, press Delete again. To cancel, press the Playback button.
You can quickly delete all files in a selected folder or folders from the Playback menu. To select the folder(s) whose files you want to dump, use the Playback Folder option on the Playback menu. Chapter 8 explains this option in detail, but in short, if the option is set to All, all files in all folders are included. You can also select a specific folder by name or set the camera to display just the folder being used to store new files. That folder name appears with the Storage Folder option on the Photo Shooting menu.
After making your folder selection, choose Delete from the Playback menu and then choose All Pictures, as shown in Figure 9-6. A confirmation screen appears; select Yes and press OK.
To get rid of multiple files but not all files, don’t waste time erasing each file one at a time. Instead, you can tag each file for erasure and then delete them all at once.
Selected Pictures: Choose this option, as shown on the left in Figure 9-7, to delete files taken on different days or to delete only a few pictures taken on a specific day. After you choose Selected Pictures, you see a screen of thumbnails, as shown on the right in the figure. Select the first photo you want to delete by tapping it or by using the Multi Selector to move the yellow box over it. Then tap Select or press the Zoom Out button. A trash can appears in the upper right corner of the thumbnail; in the figure, I labeled the symbol Delete tag.
If you change your mind, tap Select or press the Zoom Out button again to remove the Delete tag. To remove the tag from all photos and exit the screen without dumping any of them, press the Playback button or tap the exit arrow in the upper right corner of the screen.
For a closer look at the currently selected image, tap the Zoom symbol onscreen or press and hold the Zoom In button. To exit magnified view, tap the exit arrow or release the Zoom In button.
Images you tag with the trash rating, explained in the first section of this chapter, are not officially marked for erasure. The right screen in Figure 9-7 shows symbols representing both the trash rating and the Delete tag. The trash rating symbol includes a star, which you see with all rating symbols; the Delete tag looks like the symbol on the Delete button. It’s the Delete tag that triggers the camera to dump the file. The trash symbol is just there to help you find files that you earlier decided you might want to erase.
Pictures Shot on Selected Dates: Select this option to quickly delete all files recorded on specific days. After you choose the option, as shown on the left in Figure 9-8, you see a list of dates, as shown on the right. To erase all files from a date, put a check mark in the box to its left. The easiest way to do that is to tap the box. But you also can press the Multi Selector up or down to highlight the date and then tap Select or press the Multi Selector right to toggle the check mark on and off.
To see which files were shot on a selected date, use these techniques:
After tagging individual files for deletion or specifying a date to delete, tap OK or press the OK button. Select Yes when the camera asks for confirmation that you want to erase the files.
You have one other way to quickly erase all files shot on a specific date: In Calendar display mode, highlight the date and then press the Delete button. You see a confirmation screen; press Delete again to wrap up. Visit Chapter 8 for the scoop on Calendar display mode.
If you have no favorite computer program for downloading, viewing, and retouching images, Nikon offers a nice free solution, Nikon NX Studio, which you can download from the Nikon website. In fact, even if you already have a photo program, it’s worth checking out NX Studio because it offers some camera-related features not available in non-Nikon software.
Figure 9-9 shows the NX Studio program window. Your window may look a little different when you first install the program; I customized certain aspects of the display to the arrangement shown in the figure. You can create your own, custom layout by choosing options from the View and Window menus.
I especially appreciate the following NX Studio features:
Focus point display: As you can do during playback on the camera, you can display any focus point that was used to set focus when you took the picture. I labeled the focus point in Figure 9-9, for example. To turn on this feature, click open the View menu, choose Image Viewer Options, and choose Show Focus Point. Or just click the symbol I labeled “Show/hide focus point” in the figure. As far as I know, only Nikon programs can display the focus point from Nikon cameras.
Being able to see the focus point(s) is helpful for troubleshooting focus problems. If the focus point is over your subject, any blurring of the subject is caused by camera shake or subject movement during the exposure, a common problem when you use a slow shutter speed. (Chapter 3 explains shutter speed and how it relates to blurred photos.)
Nikon-oriented tools for processing Raw files: If you shoot in the Raw format, you need to convert the file to a common format, such as JPEG, in order to share it online or have it printed at retail photo-printing outlets. Many advanced photo programs have Raw processing tools, but NX Studio offers tools similar to some that you find on your Z fc. For example, you can apply the equivalent of Active D-Lighting and assign a Picture Control, something you can’t do in non-Nikon programs.
You can see some of the Raw processing tools in Figure 9-9. They’re located on the Adjustments palette, labeled in the figure. (If you don’t see the palette, open the Window menu and choose Show Adjustments/Info Palette).
After you tweak the image, click the Export symbol, also labeled in the figure, or choose Export from the File menu. You can then save the file in the JPEG format, the best for online sharing, or in the TIFF format, preferred in the professional print world because it delivers better image quality than JPEG, and top quality is critical for fine-art printing and printing at large sizes. As outlined in Chapter 3, JPEG applies a type of file compression that can create visual defects; TIFF does not use that type of compression and so does not reduce image quality. The downside of TIFF is that it creates larger files than JPEG because it doesn’t use JPEG file compression.
Using your camera’s wireless features, you can transfer files to a smartphone or tablet that can run the Nikon SnapBridge app. The appendix of this book provides details. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t work for transferring files to a regular computer.
You can connect wirelessly to a computer by installing Nikon’s Wireless Transmitter Utility software on the computer. Grab the program for free from Nikon’s online software download center. Unfortunately, this file-transfer option involves computer network issues that I don’t have room to explain in this book. If you’re interested in the feature, the camera’s instruction manual provides fairly detailed information on how to use it. (You may want to ask your favorite networking guru to lend a hand.)
For a less complicated way to download files to a computer, try these transfer options:
Use a memory card reader. A card reader, if you’re unfamiliar, is a small device that attaches to your computer (or, in some cases, is built into the computer). When you put a camera memory card into the reader, your computer recognizes the card as another drive on the system, and you can then access the files on the card.
Not all card readers work with the newest or highest-capacity SD cards. If you're shopping for a reader, make sure it's compatible with your memory cards.
After you connect your camera or put a card in the card reader, you can use whatever photo software you prefer to transfer photos to your computer. If you don't yet have a program for handling this task, give Nikon NX Studio a try. (It's free, after all.) The program has a built-in utility, Nikon Transfer 2, that makes the download process easy. Follow these steps:
In the program, click the File menu and then click Transfer Pictures.
Or click the Import button in the upper left corner of the window. Either way, you see the Nikon Transfer 2 window, shown in Figure 9-12.
Display the Source tab, labeled in Figure 9-12, to view your pictures.
Don’t see the Source tab — or any of the neighboring tabs? Click the Options triangle (refer to Figure 9-12) to display them.
When the Source tab is displayed, the icon representing your camera or card should be selected. In the figure, Removable Disk G is the name my computer assigned to my card reader.
Thumbnails of images and videos on the card appear in the bottom half of the dialog box. If you don’t see them, click the Thumbnails triangle (again, refer to Figure 9-12) to open the thumbnails area.
Select the files you want to download.
Click a thumbnail to highlight it and then click the box underneath to mark the file for downloading. These tricks speed up the process:
Click the Primary Destination tab to display options for handling the file transfer, as shown in Figure 9-13.
The most important setting is Primary Destination Folder, highlighted in the figure. Open the drop-down list and choose the folder where you want to store the pictures. Other options on this tab enable you to specify how pictures should be organized inside the primary destination folder and to rename files during the transfer.
Click the Backup Destination tab (highlighted in Figure 9-13) to transfer copies of the files to a second location.
This feature enables you to download one copy of each file to your primary destination folder and a second copy to a backup drive in one step — a great archival timesaver. On the Backup Destination tab, select Backup Files and specify where you want the backup files to go.
Click the Preferences tab to set other transfer options.
Pay special attention to these settings:
Delete Original Files after Transfer: Turn off this option. Otherwise, your pictures are erased from your memory card when the transfer is complete. Always make sure the pictures made it to the computer before you delete them from your memory card.
Open Destination Folder with the Following Application after Transfer: You can tell the program to immediately open your photo program after the transfer is complete. Choose NX Studio to view and organize your photos using that program. To choose another program, open the drop-down list, choose Browse, and select the program from the dialog box that appears. Click OK after doing so.
Click the Start Transfer button in the lower right corner of the window.
After you click the button, the Process bar in the lower left corner of the program window indicates how the transfer is progressing. What happens when the transfer completes depends on the choices you made in Step 7. If you selected Nikon NX Studio as the photo program, it opens and displays the folder that contains your just-downloaded images.
Chapter 2 introduces you to the Raw file format. The advantage of capturing Raw files — NEF files on Nikon cameras — is that you make the decisions about how to translate the original picture data into an actual photograph. You take this step by using a software tool known as a Raw processor.
Nikon NX Studio, introduced earlier in this chapter, provides a good (and free) Raw processing tool. Other popular programs for taking this step are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom (you may need to update the programs so that they can read Z fc Raw files.)
However, you also have a non-software option: the Z fc’s built-in Raw processing tool. It doesn’t offer nearly the range of adjustments as NX Studio or Photoshop and Lightroom, and you can save your file only in the JPEG format, but it’s handy when you need a JPEG copy of a Raw image quickly.
Follow these steps to use the in-camera tool:
Display the picture you want to process.
If the camera is set to display one photo at a time, move on to Step 3. If you’re using Thumbnail or Calendar view, you first must select the image. Chapter 8 explains how to select images. (To skip that bit of business, just press the Zoom In button as many times as needed to return to single-image view.)
Choose Retouch and then select RAW Processing.
You see a screen similar to the one on the left in Figure 9-14, which is the first of two pages of options you can select for processing your file. Use the Multi Selector to scroll to the second page, shown on the right in the figure, or just drag your finger down the screen.
Set the conversion options.
Along the right side of the screen, you see symbols representing adjustments you can make to the Raw file. The following list identifies each one, starting with the first option on the left screen in Figure 9-14 and continuing through the final setting on the second screen. Note that the currently selected option is highlighted, and its name appears atop the image thumbnail — Image Quality is selected in the first screen in the figure, for example; Active D-Lighting is selected in the second screen. Here are details about each option:
High ISO NR (Noise Reduction): If your picture looks noisy — that is, marred by a speckled look — enabling this feature may improve the picture. See Chapter 3 for an explanation of ISO and noise.
For this setting, as well as the Vignette Control and the Diffraction Compensation settings described later in this list, the setting that’s accompanied by a camera icon indicates the setting that was in force when you took the picture. You also see a label with the name of that setting under the image preview.
At any time, you can magnify the image by holding down the Zoom In button or by tapping the Zoom icon at the bottom of the screen. Release the button or tap the icon again to return to the normal display.
Select EXE on the first Raw Processing menu screen.
The camera executes your command and creates the processed file in the JPEG format, assigning the next available file number to the image. In Playback mode, you see the Retouched symbol (the box with a paintbrush) just as you do when applying any Retouch menu feature.
Have you ever received an email containing a photo so large that you can’t view the whole thing without scrolling the email window or opening the picture in a separate photo program? This occurs because computer monitors, tablets, and smartphone screens can display only a limited number of pixels. The exact number depends on the screen, but suffice it to say, the number is much lower than the resolution of the photos your camera produces, even if you use the smallest Image Size setting (2784 x 1856 pixels).
Thankfully, most email programs now automatically shrink the photo display to a viewable size. That doesn’t change the fact that a large photo file means longer downloading times, though — and if recipients choose to hold on to the picture, a big storage hit on their hard drives. Additionally, some email providers limit the size of files the mailbox owner can receive.
Sending a high-resolution photo is the thing to do if you want the recipient to be able to generate a good print. For simple onscreen viewing, however, I suggest limiting your photos to fewer than 1,000 pixels on the longest side of the image so that people who use older email programs can see the entire picture (or nearly all of it) without scrolling the display. The same sizing usually works well for Facebook and other social media sites, but check the site's image guidelines before you post. If the picture is for use on your company’s business website, ask the web administrator what size image to supply.
In addition to reducing the file size, you need to make sure that the file is in the JPEG format, which is the most common online format. If the image was captured in the Raw format or saved after Raw processing in the TIFF format, you need to create a JPEG copy for online use.
You have two free ways to tackle both bits of prep. For pictures already downloaded to your computer, use Nikon NX Studio, introduced earlier in this chapter. Just click the image you want to prepare, open the File menu, and choose Export. In the resulting settings box, select JPEG as the file type, specify the new file size, and then give the copy a new name to avoid overwriting the full-resolution original.
For pictures still on the memory card in the camera, you can use the built-in resizing tool. It also lets you create a low-resolution JPEG copy of a Raw or JPEG original. Take one of these two paths:
Resize a single photo: During picture playback, display the photo in single-image view (or select it in Thumbnail view or Calendar view), and press the i button. On the screen that appears, select Retouch to display the Retouch menu atop your photo.
Select Resize, as shown on the left in Figure 9-15, to display possible image sizes, as shown on the right in the figure. The first value shown for each size option reflects the pixel dimensions; the second, the total number of pixels, measured in megapixels. (This isn’t the same thing as the file size, which is measured in megabytes, or MB.) Available sizes depend on the size of the original and whether you captured the photo using the DX (whole sensor) Image Area setting, the 1:1 setting, or the 16:9 setting.
After you select a size, press the OK button or tap OK Save.
Resize a batch of photos: Press the Menu button to access the regular menu system. Display the Retouch menu and choose Resize, as shown on the left in Figure 9-16. On the next screen, shown on the right in the figure, select Choose Size. You then see a screen where you can select the pixel count of the small images. After taking that step, press the OK button or tap the exit arrow to return to the main Resize menu. Then choose Select Picture(s), as shown on the left in Figure 9-17, to display thumbnails of your photos, as shown on the right.
Select the image you want to resize by tapping its thumbnail or using the Multi Selector to move the yellow highlight box over the thumbnail. Then tap Select (at the bottom of the screen) or press the Zoom Out button to tag the file with the Resize symbol, labeled in Figure 9-17. Select the next photo, and then rinse and repeat. After tagging all photos you want to resize, tap OK or press the OK button to display the go-ahead screen. Select Yes to create your small copies.
In both cases, the camera duplicates the original images and then downsamples (eliminates pixels from) the copies to achieve the size you specified. The copies are saved in the JPEG file format, using the same Image Quality setting (Fine, Normal, or Basic) as the original. Raw originals are saved as JPEG Fine images.
Small-size copies appear during playback marked by the Resized symbol next to the file size, as shown in Figure 9-18. Next to the symbol, you see the resolution (pixel count) of the resized image. You also see the standard Retouched symbol, which appears anytime you alter a photo via a Retouch menu option. The camera assigns the next available filename to the file.