BW Black-and-White

You might think I would use Vivid or More Vivid, except that they crank up some of the contrast and sharpness settings and leave them there. I want vivid colors, but leave the contrast and sharpness on Auto. This way as subjects get contrastier I don't have to stop and turn the contrast back down. In VI* you can easily blow out a slightly high-contrast scene.

Therefore I use the Custom (pencil icon) setting:

Custom (pencil icon)

This is where Nikon hides the critical adjustments other camera makers make more obvious.

Canon lets you define many of these and recall them easily. Nikon only gives you one setting. Canon also gives you a wider and more precise range of adjustments, and therefore it's easier to make bad mistakes with Canon. The extreme settings here aren't very extreme. Play to your heart's content and see what you prefer.

Done

"Done" is the most important Custom Optimize Image menu item. If you forget to select it and then click to the right to select OK it forgets everything! Always remember to select DONE and OK after you change any of the settings below, otherwise they will be ignored.

Image Sharpening

I leave mine on AUTO. I've never messed with the manual settings. Sharpening is an artificial effect not to be confused with sharpness. When I first got a digital camera I thought: "cool, I'm cranking this to 11," and realized my error. Don't turn it up for no reason, since the image can start to look artificial. Play with it if you want. I've played with it out of curiosity, and always leave it on AUTO.

Tone Compensation (Contrast)

Nikon meant to say Contrast. I always leave mine set to AUTO. In AUTO the D40 automatically applies the Zone System (page 69) and adjusts contrast to match your subject, for each and every shot!

If Nikon's marketing department was paying attention, they would promote this as Automatic Dynamic Range Optimization, since that's what it does and Canon has nothing like this.

The D40 automatically lowers contrast and increases dynamic range for very contrasty subjects, and cranks up contrast for dull subjects.

Saturation also varies with this setting. If you crank it to + it looks vivid and bold for flatter subjects, but when you have a contrasty subject it's too much and blows out. Leave it in AUTO and you won't have to piddle with it.

Avoid Custom tone compensation. Most people call this a custom curve. I've never used it. To

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converted by Sándor Nagy