The LCD on the back of the camera provides wonderful feedback on image exposure and color quality, but if your screen happens to be set too bright or too dark, then the image you are seeing may be deceptive. When you take a photograph, you usually want to keep detail in the highlight areas and not “blow out” anything. In other words, you don’t want certain areas of your image to be completely white. For example, if you use your flash while photographing a person and the image is overexposed, the light could flood his or her face. One way to prevent this loss of detail is by enabling Highlight Alert.
ENABLING THE HIGHLIGHT ALERT SETTING
- Wake the camera (if necessary) by lightly pressing the Shutter button.
- Press the Menu button and use the Multi-Controller to select the center menu tab (second playback tab).
- Select Highlight Alert, and then press the Set button (A).
- Use the Quick Control dial to select Enable, and then press the Set button (B).
- Press the Menu button to leave the menus and continue shooting.
Now that you have enabled Highlight Alert, you will see a difference in your images while you review them. If you photograph something that is pure white (255, 255, 255 on the RGB color model), then that part of the image will blink on the LCD when you review your shot. At first you might find this a bit annoying, but trust me, it’s extremely useful. This feedback will help you properly expose your images. It’s very difficult to pull in detail from the areas that blink, so if it’s blinking somewhere you don’t want it to (someone’s face, for example), you should probably dial down your exposure a bit.