There are also Color Aberration Controls, D-Lighting, Image Dust Off, Vignette
Control, Fisheye-to-Rectilinear Image Transformation (“de-fishing”), and a Distortion
Control to reduce pincushion and barrel distortion.
Nikon Camera Control Pro 2
Nikon’s Camera Control Pro 2 is a versatile utility that allows you to communicate
directly with your camera from your computer through a USB cable. Once the two are
linked, you can perform a variety of functions:
■Shoot remotely.Just about any shooting function you can adjust on the camera
can be performed remotely, as you can see from the cluster of tabbed dialog boxes.
Set exposure mode, adjust the aperture, add or subtract exposure compensation,
choose a focus area, change ISO sensitivity or white balance—all are at your com-
mand through the software. You can even change Quality and Size settings, turn
on auto bracketing, and change image optimization settings. You can optionally
disable the controls on the camera, to prevent having settings you made at the com-
puter changed accidentally.
■Download directly to your computer.When doing time-lapse photography using
a tethered camera, you can use Camera Control Pro to transfer the images you take
directly to the computer.
■Upload comments.Frustrated by the Nikon D7000’s text entry screen? Edit your
Image Comment and upload it directly to the camera from your computer
keyboard.
■Create and save custom curves. You can load a sample image and create a special
tone compensation custom curve for that image using tools similar to those found
in Photoshop.
■View and change Custom Settings.This is one of my favorite features. While
changing the Custom Settings for any of the Custom Settings options using the
D7000’s menus isn’t difficult (particularly after you’ve absorbed the information in
Chapter 9), Camera Control Pro makes playing with these options a joy.
Other Software
Other useful software for your Nikon D7000 falls into several categories. You might
want to fine-tune your images, retouch them, change color balance, composite several
images together, and perform other tasks we know as image editing, with a program like
Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Corel Photo Paint.
You might want to play with the settings in RAW files, too, as you import them into
an image editor. There are specialized tools expressly for tweaking RAW files, ranging
from Adobe Camera Raw to PhaseOne’s Capture One Pro (C1 Pro). A third type of
David Busch’s Nikon D7000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography450