Nikon Coolpix S630 Digital Camera Review

Playback Mode

The S630 playback mode diverges somewhat from what you see in most point-and-shoot cameras. It lacks the ability to alter the amount of information displayed on the screen at the time, so you can't see EXIF data, or histograms. What it gains, on the other hand, is a number of sorting tools and different ways of grouping the images.

If you zoom out from a full-screen photo, you'll be taken through three levels of thumbnail image displays, and then a Calender View. While in playback, the images can be sorted by Favorite Pictures, Auto or List By Date, all of which are accessed by pressing the Play button again. List By Date is different from Calendar View, in that the former only lists the dates on which photos were recorded, and the latter shows a calendar of the month, with the days photos were taken highlighted.

Auto Sort divides photos into Smile, Portraits, Food, Landscape, Dusk to Dawn, Close-ups, Movies, Retouched Copies and Other Scenes, depending on the shooting mode used to take the picture.

Favorite Pictures is a set of nine albums, each of which can hold up to 200 images. These folders can be customized with one of 10 icons, and set to one of six colors. Photos are added to these albums by pressing the OK button during playback.

In-Camera Editing

The S630 has a pretty good selection of editing tools tucked into its system. Quick retouch tweaks contrast and saturation at high, medium or low levels. D-lighting boosts dynamic range to maintain detail in brightly lit and dark areas. You can also rotate the image, trim while zoomed in playback, or resize down to 640x480, 320x240 or 160x120.

If you edit an image, the edited version is always saved separately, keeping you from destroying a precious original file.

Direct Print Options

The DPOF and PictBridge controls on the S630 are good, if not amazing. You can select the number of files to print, specify paper size, and imprint shooting information and/or date and time the photo was taken. The only feature noticeably lacking is the ability to print proof sheets.