Usually when I go quiet, it's because I've been hard at work on something. Sometimes it's client work, sometimes it's a workshop, sometimes it's a big review, sometimes it's redesigning Web sites, but more often than not it's because I'm deep into finishing a book.
Today I'm announcing an ebook that should appeal to anyone with a Nikon camera dating all the way back to 2007 (D3 and D300). That's right, my new book is not camera specific. Welcome to Mastering Nikon JPEGs.
When Nikon introduced EXPEED, they introduced their processing and color model for the next 20+ years. While they've added features, such as a handful of new Picture Controls and a couple of new Picture Control parameters, everything else has been remarkably consistent from the D3 all the way through the Z9 (and beyond...). Set a D3 and Z9 the same way and you get the same results. As it turns out, there have only been three major additions to Picture Controls in the 18 year history of EXPEED that impact what you can do with JPEGs. Aside from those additions, every Nikon camera from 2007 to the present, including Coolpix, can create a JPEG image that looks exactly the same as a D3 JPEG.
I waited for Nikon to document what they were up to, but it seems that information about dealing with Picture Controls has actually gone backwards and more difficult to find in recent years rather than becoming more broadly marketed and disseminated. Sure, Nikon keeps touting whatever the latest widget they added to how EXPEED creates out of camera images, but then they don't always explain why (and sometimes even how) you'd use it. I guess once Nikon figured that they were catering to "creators", the creators themselves would creatively figure everything out ;~). Rapio creationem.
Starting with the Z9, understanding JPEG creation became even more important given that Pre-release capture can't create raw files, only JPEGs. Sports and wildlife professionals now needed to figure out how to create better JPEGs. When Nikon marketing didn't step in and start telling everyone how to get the best possible JPEG images out of Pre-release capture, of course I started getting questions about that.
When I start getting a large number of common questions I typically start writing an article. I realized pretty quickly, though, that Nikon JPEGs needed more than an article, they needed an entire book. So that's what I've created.
Mastering Nikon JPEGs is 344 jam-packed pages of information that will take you through everything you need to know to create images that look great (and the way you want them to) right out of the camera. The heart of the book is about Picture Controls, that EXPEED-powered engine that Nikon first created for the D3 and has used and extended ever since. However, we also have to take a couple of other stops—broadly "exposure" and "white balance"—to work through the entire process of creating great-looking JPEGs. And yes, not only do I fully describe what's happening with the Picture Controls, I'll take you all the way through the process of creating your own (or using some pre-made ones others have created).
While there's a little bit of "geek" in Mastering Nikon JPEGs, I've tried to keep the book approachable and easily understood. If you read it from front to back, it builds the knowledge you need create great-looking JPEGs step by step. (Perhaps in future editions I will add some extra geek, as there's a lot happening under the covers that could use further explaining.) While my Complete Guides for the various cameras do cover some of the same topics, they don't do so in the structured way I do in this new book. Moreover, writing more broadly allows me to focus you not on the camera menus, but rather on the process you use to create great out of camera images. I talk about style—without forcing you to one particular one—and much more that really doesn't fit in a camera instruction book. This is photographic instruction that I'm dealing with in Mastering Nikon JPEGs, not camera instruction. That's an important distinction to understand.
This new book is the first in a series of three I've been working on that deal with the kinds of topics that I mostly help workshop students with. While I do often deal with camera issues at workshops, the primary goal for my teaching is dealing with photography issues. If you're going to take great JPEG images, you need a structure to think about how you do that, and you need information about the key things that you should be controlling. That's exactly what you'll find in Mastering Nikon JPEGs. No fluff. No deep drills into esoteric features you might not actually use. Nope. My new book concentrates on one thing: you want great JPEGs right out of the camera, so how do you get them?
You'll find my new book on the zsystemuser.com site today (and on the dslrbodies site as soon as I get time). If you're willing to spend US$39.99 to find out what I've been (mostly) working on for the past six months, you can click here to get started.
Only use raw (NEF)? The tools you're using to evaluate exposure on your Nikon are all solely based on the JPEG output (e.g. histogram, highlights, and zebras). Get your JPEG settings wrong and those tools will lie to you about the exposure in your raw file. Check your camera. You raw users probably are set on the default Picture Control, which is Auto. As in automatic contrast, automatic sharpening, automatic saturation, and more. I've seen raw exposures as much as a stop-and-a-half off because someone trusted the in-camera exposure tools and they tripped over the JPEG settings. While I don't dwell on this in my book, it's a reason why Mastering Nikon JPEGs should be read by every Nikon user.
The book comes both as an ePub and PDF file. The PDF file is structured for printing (but can be read on your device, too).
