Taking a Portrait With a Coolpix

Portrait Settings

• Coolpix cameras offer two portrait settings. The standard portrait setting, which can be accessed via the menu on the back of the camera, detects and focuses on faces. Night portrait mode illuminates faces when the background is dark; it is especially useful for twilight and indoor portrait sessions.

Flash Settings

• The automatic flash setting on your Coolpix camera will flash when you are indoors or the lighting is dim, but remain off when sufficient light is present. However, for high-quality portraits, you should turn the auto flash off. Indoor lighting typically looks best without the flash, unless the set creates shadows that the flash can help eliminate. Conversely, shadows, strange lighting and squinty eyes -- common problems in portrait photography -- are easily avoided if you turn on the flash when taking portraits outside.

General Portrait Tips

• Although a Coolpix camera certainly makes taking photos easier, there are several steps that you should take to ensure a high quality photo. Fill the frame with your subject's face and avoid allowing distracting background images into the photo. Don't zoom out too much, or else your subject may be lost in a sea of background images. Take lots of pictures from many different angles. Even expert photographers have to take numerous pictures to get the perfect image.

Image Touch-Up

• Nikon Coolpix cameras offer an in-camera image touch-up program called D-lighting. D-lighting removes underexposed and overexposed areas of photos, creating natural, soft images. Simply find the photo that you want to fix, apply the D-lighting setting and then save the edited photo.