This is how you get your choice of wild colors or creamy skin tones. I have a whole page about this at Nikon Picture Controls. They work the same way for the D3, D700, D300 and D90. I usually use VIVID and +3 Saturation for most crazy things, NEUTRAL and +1 Saturation for people, and STANDARD if Im trying to match colors in studio product shots.
There is no right way to set it. Photography is an art, so whatever looks good to you is right. Picture Controls are how you set your D90 to give you the pictures you want right out of your camera. Learn these, and youll never have to waste your day screwing with raw files. When reset, the D90 resets each Picture Control, including saved Picture Controls, back to its own default. If you regularly change any part of any Picture Control, youll want to save it that way as its own named preset. See Picture Controls.

Metering

I have used Matrix, the D90s default, for everything since I got my first Nikon FA back in 1992. You set this with the Meter Mode button on the top. I discuss the other modes at Top Panel Controls. I use the Exposure Compensation control if I need to lighten or darken the pictures. See my Exposure page for details on getting perfect exposures.

Autofocus

I have an entire page on How to Set the Nikon D90s Autofocus Controls.

Nikon D90 Lens Settings

If the switch says M/A - M then use M/A. This gives autofocus, and if I grab the focus ring it instantly lets me make manual corrections. As soon as I tap the shutter button again I get autofocus. This M/A setting, if the lens has it, provides both kinds of focus without ever having to move any switches. Its the best. Older lenses may have an A - M switch. Leave those at A. To get manual focus you must move the switch on the lens, and/or the switch on the camera. Its not automatic. Different lenses require different settings on the camera and lens to get manual. Some, like the old 300mm f/4 AF, required moving both the camera and lens switches! That was a pain. Non-G lenses will have an aperture ring on the base of the lens where its attached to the camera. Set this this ring to the smallest aperture (largest number), usually in orange and 16, 22 or 32. There usually is a lock to keep this ring set there, since if it comes off that setting youll get an error message (fEE) from most cameras.

Nikon D90 Front Controls

Flash Bolt +/- Button (right side of flash hump as seen from
front) Press this to pop up the flash. This button also sets the flash sync mode and the brightness of the flash. Flash brightness is more formally called flash exposure compensation. Press and hold the flash button and turn the front dial to change the flash exposure compensation. This sets the brightness of the flash. + makes the flash brighter, - makes it dimmer. This setting only changes the brightness of the flash while leaving the background (ambient) exposure alone. Set it to - if your subjects are getting washed out. If you run out of flash power beyond 10 to 20 feet, then setting it to + cant make the flash any brighter. If you set flash exposure compensation to anything other than zero, youll see a little +/- bolt icon in the finder and on the top LCD and INFO panel. This resets when you do a green reset. Press and hold the flash button and turn the rear dial to change the flash sync mode. Youll see the mode shown on the top LCD (and INFO panel) in the box with the bolt.

Trash (also doubles as one of the two FORMAT buttons)
With an image on the LCD, press once. Youll get an Are you sure? message. Press again and the shots gone. The D90 ignores this button if its not playing back. Hold this along with its brother (the MODE button) to format a memory card.
Direct Sunlight (smiling sun icon)
This is for use outdoors with the midday sun shining directly on the subject. I never use this, I use Auto.

Play [>] Button

Press it to see your pictures. Press again to turn them off.

MENU top

This gets you inside your D90. Ill cover what you can screw up with this in the 11 long pages that follow.
Flash (lightning bolt icon)
I never use this. Its warmer (more orange) than the direct sun setting. The reason to use this is if you use a different trim value for your strobes than you do for sunlight. Ill get to trims in a bit.

?/Key/WB

While in Menus: ?. Press for more information about whatever youre setting, if you see a gray ? on the lower left of the color LCD. If no gray ?, then there is no help available. The ? button will eliminate your need to read half of this users guide, if you need explanations of various menu options. While in Playback: Key. It protects (locks) the image from erasure. Warning 1.): It marks the file so well that it wont empty out of my trash on my computer unless I go in and remark the file on my computer first! Warning 2.): These images are erased from your memory card when you format anyway. Now you see why I dont use the lock feature.

Cloudy (cloud icon)

Warmer (more orange) than the sunlight position. I use this in shade, too.
Shade (house casting a shadow icon)
Very warm. Adds orange to your photo. Use this for sunset shots, or shots in open shade lit by the sky.
Continuously Variable (K)
This setting lets you choose any amount of blue or orange. Once you select K you choose the value, from 2,500 to 10,000, with the front knob while holding WB. The calibrations are abstract in what we scientists call (degrees) Kelvin. More degrees look warmer. There are no rules in real-world photography: use whatever setting looks best to you. 2,500 K is very, very blue. Ill use something around 2,650 K in dim home lighting to get neutral results. 3,200 K is the same as the tungsten setting above. 5,400 K is the same as direct sun above. Ill use something around 4,000 K indoors with a mixture of sun and tungsten

While Shooting:

This is critical to getting the photos you want right out of your D90. Spin the rear knob for broad changes. Spin the front knob to fine tune. See my White Balance Examples page and my White Balance
light. 10,000 K is very, very orange. The shade setting is similar to 7,500 K, and 10,000 K is the warmest (most orange).

Preset (PRE)

You use this setting with a white or gray card to get perfect color matching. The D90 can recall five settings: just hold WB and spin the front knob after choosing PRE with the rear knob. You can to use menus to save the five settings. I never use an actual card. I always grab a napkin, t-shirt, back of a menu or other piece of white. Black text makes no difference, so long as the background is white. If you choose a bluish piece of paper (like a glossy printed piece), your results will be warmer (more orange), and if you use a more orange piece of paper (like a cheap paper napkin), your results will be more blue. Avoid gray items, since they are very rarely neutral, even if they look gray. To set your white balance to something white: 1.) Ensure your card or other neutral object is in the same sort of light as your subject. Changing the angle of the object often will favor one kind of a light or another in mixed light, which will greatly affect your result. 2.) Hold WB and spin the rear dial to get to PRE. 3.) Release WB. 4.) Press and hold WB again for a few seconds. 5.) PRE starts to blink. 6.) Release the WB button. 7.) Point your D90 at the card and press the shutter. 8.) If the display flashes gd (good) youre all set. 9.) If the display flashes ng then repeat from step 4.) The D90 stores this as value d-0. You can save five different values using the menus, numbered d-0 through d-4. d-0 is always the value you just saved. You can recall the other saved values by holding WB and spinning the front knob. Thank God you can recall them without menus. The menus (explained later) are only for storing, sorting and managing these. I have mine set to 1.) indoors under crummy residential light, 2.) the screen of my laptop computer, 3.) mercury street lights and 4.) a cloudy day. Im sure you will be more inventive.
Trick: When you have 4, 9 or 25 images (or the calendar) up, spin the front knob to flip more quickly between rows of images. Shooting: This is the ISO control.
ISO is pronounced Eye-Ess-Oh, not eyeso. Hold this and spin the rear dial to change ISO. Firmware Flaw: ISO goes from 100 to 6,400. Above ISO 3,200, Nikon uses bizarre terminology to scare amateurs away from setting these ISOs because these same amateurs would clog up Nikons (800) NIKON-UX support lines complaining about grain. Nikon calls ISO 6,400 H+1.0. Likewise, ISO 100 is called L-1.0. Hint: Since ISO is displayed in the finder, you can set this without taking your eye from the finder. Hint: If youve selected Auto ISO, you can set a manual ISO higher than you allow in Auto ISO, but as soon as you take your hand off the setting, Auto ISO brings you back into the range youve allowed in Auto ISO. To get weird ISOs like ISO 6,400 (H+1.0), you must turn off Auto ISO, or be sure to have Auto ISO set to allow that setting.

Magnifier (+) QUAL

Playback: Tap it to zoom in. If you have 4, 9 or 25 shots (or the calendar display), tap it to get to fewer shots displayed. Trick: When you have 4, 9 or 25 images (or the calendar) up, spin the front knob to flip more quickly between rows of images. Shooting: This is the QUALity button.
QUALity sets the file format and compression levels. Pros shoot JPG. I shoot JPG. The only people who shoot raw are people who arent getting work as pros because they dont yet understand the basics of exposure and WB I explained at the top of page one. These second-stringers instead spend their time teaching or just talking to anyone wholl listen to them run on about photography, so they have confused many new photographers. Ignore them and see my JPG versus raw article. Hold the QUAL button and turn the rear dial to choose the kind of file (JPG, raw or both), and the level of JPG compression. Keep spinning the dial, and you can record raw at the same time as JPG. Hold and turn the front dial to change JPG image size in pixels. I use Large (12MP) or Medium (6MP) and JPG BASIC. The D90 has enough resolution for great 20x30 (50x75cm) prints. Even the Medium setting has plenty of resolution for great 12 x 18 (30x50cm) prints, so I usually shoot in Medium unless I plan to be making huge enlargements. Why do I worry about file size? Simple: I shoot a lot, and I bloated files waste time and money in transfer, backup and storage. Try it: shoot the same thing at several settings, and you wont be able to see the difference! See this on my D200.
White Balance Trims (fine tuning)
These are critical to getting the photos you want right out of your D90. I rarely get what I want as set above, and usually need to set my image slightly warmer (more orange or amber (A)). This is easy, but often overlooked by beginners. All you need to do is look at the image you just made on the LCD. Like it? Youre done. Too cool (blue)? Then hold WB and move the front dial a couple of clicks to about A3 and try again. The more A you add, like A5 or A6, makes the image more orange, and the more blue you add, like B4 or B6, makes it bluer. Easy! Do this and all your photos will be bang-on and you can stop wasting your time waiting for raw images to process.

Checkerboard (-) ISO

Playback: Tap it to select one, four, nine or 25 shots up at once. Tap it again to see a calendar with what you shot on what day. If zoomed, tap it to reduce the zoom.
and youre back to normal. You set the AF mode in Custom Settings Menu a7. Want to make a movie? Just press the OK button while in Live View, and youre rolling. You set the movie parameters in the Shooting Menu. Live View is so well designed that its easier to figure out by playing with it than for me to try to describe it in words. Have fun!

Eyepiece Focuser

Twiddle the little knob, under the rubber just above the right of the eyepiece, until the finder is sharpest. This is also called the dioptometic adjustment.

Big Thumb Button

This is used for everything: menu navigation, selecting AF areas, scrolling through playback images and a whole lot more. You can configure the OK button in custom setting f2.

OK Button

While playing back at normal size: Tap it to get to the Retouch menu. While playing back with any sort of zoom in or out: Tap it to return to one image at normal size. While in menus: Takes action on what youve set.

AE-L/AF-L Button

Hold this to lock exposure settings while shooting. You may change what this button does in the Custom Setting Menu f4. I set mine to AEL.

Rear Dial

Used to set just about everything in every mode.

AF Selector Lock

This is an electronic lock. Its smart: if set, it ignores the Big Thumb Button only while shooting. It doesnt lock anything else. This is Nikons best selector lock ever. Its almost impossible to knock by accident. The locks on Nikons more expensive but older cameras, like the D1, D2, D3, F5 and F6, are easier to knock by accident.

Live View button

The Nikon D90 has the fastest and easiest to use Live View system of any camera Ive used to date. Press the button, and bingo, youre in Live View. Press it again

Info Button

The Exposure Compensation button may be the most important button on any camera, but the new INFO button is the most fun. Tap it, and finally you can see every adjustment on the rear LCD, where you need it!
Top LCDs are bogus, a leftover from film cameras because camera backs had to swing open to insert film. If the D90 is in your hand you can flip it to see the scrawny little top LCD, but you always can see the big, bright bold rear LCD in any light. The INFO screen shows more than fits on the top LCD. For instance, the INFO display not only shows you the flash sync mode, it also shows you if the built-in flash is set to TTL, Manual, Repeating or to control remote flashes. My year-old $5,000 Nikon D3, and the Nikon D300, are inferior because you need a second hand, and good timing, to hit a sharedpurpose button on the left to get to the INFO screen.
On the D90, just hit the dedicated INFO button with your thumb and youre there at any time. Hit INFO again and you can adjust the items along the bottom of the screen. If you like, you also can call up the INFO screen by flipping the power/light button by setting this in Custom Function Menu f1.

Nikon D90 Playback Menu

How to Get Here
Press MENU, click to the left and then up to select the top [ > ] (play) icon. Youll then see PLAYBACK MENU on the top of the rear LCD. would take more computing power than Nikon chose to devote to it, or possibly Nikons engineers havent figured this out yet (I used to earn my living 15 years ago teaching digital imaging gear makers these finer points). You can blow out your reds, blues or anything other than gray or green and never notice. You can select which channel to read while in the RGB histogram page. If you work at Nikon Id love to help you get this right: just ask me. RGB histogram: Yes, use this! See my Color Histogram page. Data: this is three pages of f/stop, white balance, etc. I also set this.

What it Does

It sets various playback options, including what data you see on playback.

What I Change

I activate the color histograms, the data, and set the image to show after every shot.

Image Review

This sets the LCD to show each image after you shot it. I leave mine ON; the whole point of having a digital camera. The only reason to use OFF is if youre shooting numerous long bursts and dont want the screen popping on after each.

Delete

This is helpful if you want to delete all images while saving those for which you pressed the ? / Key button to lock. I dont use this. I do all my editing and selection in my computer and I do my in-camera deletions one-by-one with the trash can key.

Rotate Tall

Who translates these? I leave this off. If you set it ON, your vertical shots, if shot with Auto Rotate ON, will playback as tiny little vertical images. Luckily the D90 is smart enough to magnify using the whole screen if you choose this mode. The D90 is not smart enough to use the rotation sensor during playback. Canons point-and-shoots are. Many Canon point-andshoots expand these images to full screen if you rotate the camera during playback! The D90 doesnt. I dont use Rotate Tall.

Playback Folder

The camera can record and play to and from from different folders. NCD90 plays all the shots made on the D90, but ignores shots made on other cameras. You shouldnt be using cards with data from other cameras since that might lead to errors. Always format a card anytime its put into a camera. All shows you everything on the card. I leave my D90 set to ALL. Current ignores photos in folders other than the one to which youre recording. If you create new folders for different scenes as you shoot, you wont see the other shots on the card!

Picmotion

This must be popular in Japan. It lets you you amaze your friends with an exciting slideshow complete with goofy music and effects, to play in-camera. I dont bother with this, but it might be funny to do with a bunch of photos made while out with friends for sushi.

Hide Image

This is used to hide embarrassing photos of your friends from playing back before you get to download them. The images are on the D90, however when marked this way they will be skipped on playback just as if you deleted them. Move the cursor left and right to select images, press the center to mark as Hide or Unhide, and press ENTER to save. Now the camera wont play these images, even though it still tallies them in its counter on the top right that reads 34/284. You can detect a hidden image because this counter will skip.

The D90 looks for faces!

a5 Focus point wrap-around
AF point selection normally stops when you hit the edge of the constellation of AF areas.

Wide Area (default)

Nikon suggests this for shooting hand-held. It looks in wider areas than just the tiny focus points.

No wrap (default)

If you keep pressing the selector to the left it stops at the far left. I prefer it this way.

Normal Area

The D90 looks only at the small eras of the focus points. Nikon suggests this for use on a tripod.
Wrap lets your selection wrap around to the other side of the AF areas!
Nikon D90 Custom Setting Menu: Metering/Exposure
b2 Easy exposure compensation
This lets you alter your exposure by turning the front dial without having to press the Exposure Compensation (lighten/darken) button. I love Easy, which is the name of this feature, but its too easy. I hit the dial too often by accident, so I dont use it. I leave it at its default of OFF. There is no RESET option as on other cameras. RESET automatically resets the exposure compensation to zero every time you turn the camera back on. This is a very good idea, but no in the D90. Otherwise you may lose a lot of shots from having a wrong value set from yesterdays last shot.

b3 Center-weighted area

This sets the diameter of the sensitive part of the center weighted meter. These settings only take effect when youve selected center weighted metering. I never use center weighted metering, so I certainly never play with this. You also have the option of metering from the entire image, called Average. These modes went out in 1983 when the Matrix Meter was invented, but old-timers cling to these so Nikon leaves them in. I always use Matrix.
b1 - b4 Metering/exposure
Press MENU, go to the left and select up and down to the pencil icon. Youll then see CUSTOM SETTING MENU on the color LCD. Click down to b METERING/EXPOSURE and click to the right.
b4 Fine tune optimal exposure
Dont do this! This is a service adjustment that allows you to make permanent tweaks to the exposure meter calibrations. These settings do not show up on the control panels! Youd use this if your camera were defective, or if you did something weird like convert it to infra-red. If you dare do this, you can tweak the meters in sixth-stop increments, with different adjustments for each of the Matrix, CenterWeighted and Spot meters. Dont do this. This should be hidden as a service facility tweak. If your shots are too dark or light you should have your camera repaired, or use the regular Exposure Compensation button.
Here we set important metering and ISO options.
Nothing. I leave these alone.
b1 EV steps for exposure control

d12 MB-D80 battery type

Forget this if you use the usual gray rechargeable EN-EL3e battery packs in the grip. Leave this alone if youre using throw-away AA alkaline batteries or the EN-EL3e. If you use other kinds of AA batteries, set this and youll get more accurate battery level readings. Change it if youre using throw-away AA lithium, Ni-MH AA, or crappy throw-away heavy duty AA cells, which Nikon graciously calls ZR6 (AA Ni-Mn).
d6 CL mode shooting speed
This selects the maximum frame rate of the CL (continuous low) frame advance setting. I leave mine on its default of 3 FPS. You may select 1FPS, 2 FPS, 3FPS or 4 FPS.
Nikon D90 Custom Setting Menu: Bracketing/flash
This is how to set the built-in flash to become the commander to talk to a wireless remote flash, which today is the SB-600, SB-800 and SB-900. Under this menu you can set two groups of external flashes separately, as well as how much light comes from the built-in flash. Comp is the exposure compensation (brightness) for each of these groups of lights. You can set lighting ratios of remote flashes, right from the D90! Trick: You have to set Channel 3, not the default of 1, to get this to work! My SB-600 defaults to channel 3. You can use any channel, but the flash and camera have to match. Different channels are handy if you have a lot of photographers shooting in the same arena. No, I have no idea why the D70 defaults to 3 as does the SB-600, and the D90 defaults to ch. 1. Leave the rest of it alone. Set your flash for remote operation, and away you go. See my page on how to use remote flash. Its an incredible feature, and its free if you have an SB-600, SB-800 or SB-900.
e1 - e6: Bracketing/flash
Press MENU, go to the left and select up and down to the pencil icon. Youll then see CUSTOM SETTING MENU on the color LCD. Click down to e BRACKETING/FLASH and click to the right.

e3 Modeling Flash

Leave this off! Otherwise youll go blind, because when turned on it fires a zillion flash shots as a modeling light if you tap the Depth-of-Field preview button. The D90 is superior to other Nikons because its the first Nikon to default this setting to off.

Tap the FUNC button, the flash goes off and meters itself - once. Now every succeeding shot needs no preflashes! This means that, so long as your distance stays unchanged, that youll get instant shutter release, and more importantly, no blinking from the preflashes. This choice fires the preflashes only once, and uses that information for every succeeding shot until you reset it. It resets itself when the meter turns off, or if you tap the Function Button again.
Here lie some of the most important tricks I use on my D90. These change what some of the buttons and knobs do.
I change a lot of these. Read on.

Flash Off

Doesnt fire the flash so long as you hold the FUNC button.

f1 Light Bulb Switch

This lets us fire up the big rear LCD to show us all our settings whenever we flick the power switch to the backlight position. I chose the new option of BOTH. The default of LCD backlight means the backlight (light bulb) switch lights the top LCDs backlight. Big deal; Nikons have done this the 1990s. The new option also lights up everything on the glorious 3D rear LCD where I can see it, and shows far more information than the dorky top LCD, which is just a vestige from 1990s film cameras. This works in concert with the INFO button.
Goes into Matrix metering.

Center-Weighted

Goes into CW metering.
Goes into spot metering when held.

Top Item in My Menu

I use this! This is the key to life! Not only can I get to my very favorite My Menu item, if I click left, I can get to the rest of the menu system, meaning I can shoot with just one hand!

f2 OK Button

This lets you select what happens when you press the center of the rear thumb selector. I leave it at RESET, which means it selects the center AF sensor.

+NEF (raw)

Also records a raw file along with your JPG.
f4 Assign AE-L/AF-L button
This sets the function of the AE-L/AF-L button on the rear of the D90. It also can be set to many of the same functions as the other buttons. I set mine to AE lock only. This way I point the camera where I want my exposure, and hold the button until I recompose and make my exposure.

Change main/sub

So what.

Menus and playback

Leave this alone so the rear dial scrolls quickly among your shots, and the front dial scrolls among the various data screens.

AE/AF lock

Locks exposure and focus.

f6 No memory card?

By default, the D90 wont shoot without a card. Dont touch this setting, or you could happily shoot an entire wedding, look at each shot on the LCD in every display mode and zoom setting, and not realize until the end of the day that you had no card in the camera! If youre a salesman at Best Buy, set this to Enable Release so people can play with the D90 with no memory card, otherwise, dont touch this.

LCD Brightness

This changes the midtones on the LCD. It doesnt appear to change the intensity of the backlight. It seems to be a gamma (contrast) control. For the adjustment to take effect you must remember to hit OK after making a selection. I leave mine at 0.
When you get your text message spelled out, go to Attach Comment and hit OK so a small checkmark shows. Now go to and select DONE. If you forget to check Attach it wont attach, and if you forget to hit DONE it will also forget everything you just did. Sorry, I dont write the firmware. Its great having everything you shoot have your contact info embedded. It also allows you to prove ownership in a third-world country when catching a thief with your camera. Help the cop go through the menus and read your personal ID information.

Charging life

Charging Life shows the batterys health. A new one reads 0 and an almost dead one reads 4. Ive made many tens of thousands of shots on my D300, D80, D200 and D90 which share the same batteries, and my batteries all read new. The trick is not to run them it the way down before charging. Read Getting Great Battery Life to see how I do it.
This lets you make the meter stay on all the time if you wish. If the meter turns off, the D90 needs to resync communication with the GPS each time.

Auto Image Rotation

This sets a flag in vertical images which keys most software to display the image vertically. It does not actually rotate the images; it just sets a flag. Someday the cameras firmware will work properly and rotate the image itself, but no camera does this yet. I perform lossless rotation to my images later in iView.

Firmware Version

This lets you confirm if your camera is up-to-date with Nikons free firmware updates. As of 24 September 2008, the D90 sitting in front of me reads A 1.00, B 1.00 and L 1.000. There is always newer firmware; Im too busy shooting to load it.

Image Dust Off ref Photo

This is used to take a picture of the dust on your sensor. If you pay Nikon another $100 for Nikon Capture software you can use this to erase the dust more easily from your images shot in raw. You people know who you are. I dont do this!

Battery Info

I use this all the time.

Bat. Meter

The Battery Meter reads the battery charge to the nearest one percent. This is the same battery data shown on the top LCD display, but the top gauge only has 5 bars to read to the nearest 20%.

Pic. Meter

The Picture Meter shows how many images have been shot on this charge.

Nikon D90 Retouch Menu

If you set ADR to AUTO for shooting as I do, you shouldnt need this. Remember: shadows are supposed to be dark.

Red-Eye Correction

This attempts to rectify flash-induced red eyes. This filter is sneaky enough to know if you used flash or not to make the image, and wont let you use this filter if you didnt use flash. Ive never had a problem with red-eye with my D90, so all the better. When I was able to cause red-eye, this filter only corrected half of the eyes!
This creates cropped versions of images. No pixels are moved or changed in size. Trim removes unwanted pixels from the sides of an image and saves a smaller image.

Monochrome

Select the Retouch Menu by pressing MENU, moving to the left and then up or down to select the brush icon second from the bottom. Youll then see RETOUCH MENU on the top of the color LCD. You also can hit OK while an image is playing. This creates black-and-white images. It has three modes: Black-and-White Sepia (Brown-and-white) Cyanotype (Blue-and-White) Have fun!
This is a silly menu that lets you twiddle with images youve already shot. The originals are unaltered. The D90 creates new versions of the images and saves them. Concatenation: The D90 is sneaky enough to know if a file was created with these trick modes, and often wont let you apply the same filter twice. You can concatenate different filters. If your original image is an NEF or TIFF, it will be saved as a FINE LARGE JPG. Otherwise, its saved the same way as the original image. Firmware Defect: The new images are saved with a file number one more than the most recent image. The EXIF create time is unaltered, so youll have to sort images by create time if you can. This defect means that the file numbers of the newly created versions are scrambled from the originals. If youre playing with the most recent image, the file numbers are close, but if youre playing with an earlier file, its file number will be unrelated to the original. For instance, if you make an edited version of DCS_0123.jpg, the new file might be called CSC_5837.jpg, with no relation either by letters or by numbers. Good luck! The correct way to do this is to retain the same file name and append -edit, -edit1, -edit2, etc. If Nikon did the correctly, an edited version would be named something like DSC_0123-edit.jpg. Heres what each does.

NEF (RAW) Processing

This lets you make and save a JPG if you only shot in raw.

Quick Retouch

This lets you create and save a copy with wilder colors. YES!

Straighten

This lets you fix crooked horizons, up to 5.

Distortion Control

This allows creating a new copy of an image with very rudimentary first-order distortion correction. This mode cannot correct the more complex distortion of may wider lenses. It doesnt work very precisely, and you only can see what youre doing by looking at an unzoomed image on the 3 screen. The Auto mode isnt very smart. Heres an example of what it does with a shot made with the 18-105mm lens at 18mm: Barrel-distorted image. Roll over to see correction. (30 Apple monitor shot with 18-105mm lens.) Its better, but still not perfect. I do these corrections in Photoshops Lens Distortion Filter, or in DxO, but either of those software packages can cost almost as much as a D90.
Nikon D90 My Menu (Recent Settings) Menu
This lets me select among the various picture controls. I use my VIVID setting with +3 saturation for photos of things, and NEUTRAL with +1 saturation for photos of people. I also get to this setting along the bottom of the INFO screen, reached by hitting the INFO button.
I turn ISO AUTO on and off here as I go between auto and manual exposure. Ill be able to remove this whenever Nikon patches the firmware defect that leaves AUTO ISO active in manual exposure mode.
Here I set the lowest shutter speed depending on what Im shooting, and with what lens Im shooting it. I set 1/100 if shooting people, 1/250 if shooting a long tele, and 1/8 if shooting wide landscapes.
Press MENU, scrolling to the left and selecting the bottom option which has an icon resembling another menu with a check. Youll see MY MENU on the color LCD.

Active folder

I use this to create new folders for each subject I shoot.

Image review

Sometimes I want to see each shot when shooting slowly, some times when shooting bursts I dont want the monitor popping in by itself. Here is where I set this. Ideally Nikon needs a firmware improvement whereby we can switch between these by holding the Play button for several seconds, but Nikon hasnt gotten there yet.

My Menu lets you put all the menu items you actually use in one place. You also have the option of using Nikons older Recent settings menu, which automatically update to contain the items youve used recently. You select which of these two menus are used (My Menu or Recent settings) with the Choose tab option at the bottom of this menu.

Battery info

If youre the sort of person like me who watches your digital clocks to be sure they count up properly, this menu lets you read your battery power to the nearest single percent. It also tells you how many shots youve already made on this charge, which can help you predict how many shots are left. Youll need Algebra to calculate remaining shots; the D90 doesnt do it for you. To calculate, remaining shots = (pic meter) / (1-(bat. meter/100)) Charging life is the health of your battery. Ive made many tens of thousands of shots on my many Nikons, and have never seen it read anything other than 0 (new). See How to Keep Your Batteries Healthy.

What I Do with It

This feature helps immensely, since Nikon hides so many important menu items in weird locations.
I have my My Menu menu programmed to:
Top Item: a1 AF-area mode
This lets me select between the different AF modes fast, since there is no lever as there is on the D300, D700 and D3. See more at How to Use the D90s AF System. This is also the item to which I go when tapping the FUNC button when it is programmed to take me to the top item in My Menu. Getting here via the FUNC button, I can click left and get to the entire menu system, all with the D90 in my right hand. This lets me shoot with only one hand, a huge advantage over the D300 and D3.