Los Angles, California. October 23, 2001.

The hugely popular eBook, Mastering Nikon Compact Digital Cameras, by Peter iNova, has been updated and released in Version 3.0.

New Camera Operation chapters are included giving detailed insights into the recent Coolpix 995 and Coolpix 775 cameras. New interactivity and support software have been added.

"The 995 is an evolutionary camera that has become the standard bearer for the Nikon 3 megapixel camera line," said author Peter iNova, "and while the little CP775 may be the 'least' Coolpix, it certainly delivers a lot in a small package."

"I had shot an architectural model with the 775 because its small body allowed me to place it within the physical space available, then handed the images over to a team who were making their presentation to one of the biggest clients imaginable. They took the 775 images and printed them large on poster-size presentation boards. The shots were blown up to 10 x 13.3 inches and arranged several to the board. Nothing about them gave them away as originating as digital camera images and people gasped when I showed them the tiny camera that made the shots."

The Camera Operation chapter for the 775 has over 90 "InfoBites" about its useful techniques, tricks and picture-taking tips.

"But the InfoBite champion is the 995," said iNova. "This camera includes a huge number of small but important improvements, and how those affect the image or operation of the camera has generated 125 InfoBites."

The eBook is now 325 pages, each 8.5 x 11 inches large, with over 700 images, diagrams and tables in full color. Interactivity has been taken forward quite a bit with many cross links in the text. Thumbnail views of pages and a complete Bookmark system makes locating pages and chapters easy when viewed in Adobe Acrobat®, which is included in BOTH version 4.01 and 5.0 on the CD for convenience. Even the index has been expanded and improved.

The eBook is Windows and Macintosh compatible.

Three versions of the eBook are on the CD;

One for the highest resolution reading and viewing with above print-quality images that can be viewed up to a minimum of 300% (some still larger) on your computer screen.
One for chapter-by-chapter viewing on a computer with lower memory (still viewable up to 150%).
Also, a full-book high-resolution version is included, which can be viewed and browsed from end to end quickly (for computers with a spare 60 megabytes or more).

Included with the Version 3.0 eBook are all the original iNovaFX Photoshop Action Filters that appeared in the first versions. Over 280 that work with Photoshop 5 and 5.5, and over 320 that work with Photoshop 6.0 including many new ones.

"I define a 'filter' as anything you pass an image through," said iNova, "and nearly all of these behave that way, but since they are technically Photoshop Actions, they take advantage of all of Photoshop's native Plug-In filters, drawing tools, special effects, blending techniques, color manipulation engines and exotic formatting capabilities. Some of them orchestrate over 100 steps to achieve a particular result."

Included in the filter kit with Version 3.0 are the iFourPrint series. These take four vertical or horizontal images and lay them out for printing on a single letter-size page, either US Letter or the world standard A4 paper. The order one opens the shots in Photoshop becomes the reading order for the page in what iNova calls "comic strip" reading order.

Also new are the iRetNar series. These achieve much of what NASA's "Retinex" image processing technique achieves to rescue marginal images. As are many of the iNovaFX filters, these have the ability to be tuned for the best result.

"Many images from digital cameras can achieve a level of custom print quality," said iNova, "and I found that many of the steps I was applying were redundant. So I came up with the 'Panacea' filter. It passes the MCT test. Meaning 'Mom Can Tell.'"

Called iMprove1, the "panacea" filter is a crowd-pleaser. It sharpens--but not too much, adds contrast--without affecting the overall contrast of the image (!), and perks up the chroma just enough to get mom to tell you how much she likes the picture--without crashing the colors.

New as well are filters that achieve sharpness while suppressing sharpening artifacts, filters that combine multiple in-register shots for grain-free results, filters that mimic the effect of polarizers on blue sky, filters that create distressed sepia aged prints and filters that create film and stamp borders around your digital images.

Current eBook owners can Upgrade their CD to Version 3.0 for 20% of the price of a new eBook. Details at www.digitalsecrets.net.

More can be learned on these web pages:

http://www.digitalsecrets.net/secrets/breakingnews.html
http://www.digitalsecrets.net/secrets/FilterHelp3.html
http://www.digitalsecrets.net/secrets/iFilters2.html
http://www.digitalsecrets.net/secrets/chapterlist.html