Pixelation issues - rather sudden...???

[judipurple]

I think I've figured this out, but let me explain what I ran into today. Ugh - this was disappointing. (Edited to add - no I DON'T know wtf is wrong!! HELP please? )

We had a graduation/double birthday party (luckily, family and not a paying gig), so I brought the new camera. I took a reasonable quantity of pictures and was confident that despite the party being indoors, that my settings were good (aperture mode set at f/11, raw) . The shots wouldn't be as clear as outdoor shots, but the shots looked good in the viewfinder when I looked - did good on framing and straight horizons (for the most part).

When I popped the SD card into my computer this evening, I was frankly surprised at how grainy and pixelated the shots looked in PS - in spite of being large files (raw @ mid 20s MB). And when I postprocessed in PS, the resulting files (again, still fairly large files) were even worse. But, when I looked at the images SOOC, in Photo Gallery on my laptop, enlarged, it was only very slightly grainy, no worse than previous indoor shots taken with the D3400...

I then launched into detective work.

Double checked the settings, changed the SD card (I suspected corruption), took additional pix - and the same thing is happening. When the pix open in RAW on Photoshop, the pixelation is stupid ...I tried opening previous (raw) indoor pix in PS/raw, and saw no pixelation problems with previous pictures, either straight out of camera or processed.

I have Adobe PS CC 2014... Is it the Photoshop app? If so, why would it have this issue suddenly but still be okay with previous shots? As I said - aaarghhhh.

Help?


.....P.S. Is it pixilated or pixalated or pixelated? Or none of the above?

 

[Ysarex]

Set up a free Dropbox account so you can let us see the photos unprocessed. Pick what you think is one of the worst raw files (NEF) and upload it there -- link here. Post here or there one of the JPEGs you created that you find objectionable.

Joe

 

[SCraig]

Your camera is likely doing some in-camera noise reduction. It would have no effect on the RAW file since no corrections are performed on RAW files. However the in-camera preview is a JPEG file and would have corrections applied to it before it is displayed.

 

[Designer]

.. the shots looked good in the viewfinder when I looked -

Are you talking about the display? The rear LCD will play tricks on you, and is not a good representation of what the image will look like on your computer.

In low light, with your ISO set to "auto", you will get some electronic noise, which in some cases can be minimized in post, but the best cure is to add light. Get a speedlight and learn how to use it in bounce mode, or if you've got the time to set up, get it off your camera and behind a large diffuser, such as a white "shoot-through" umbrella. Either way will add light for family snapshots.

 

[KmH]

Digital cameras don't have grain.
They have various types of image noise.
Read noise, thermal noise, amp noise, dark noise all result from signal to noise ratio issues.
In a digital photo image noise manifests itself in a number of ways ans is random, in a fixed patter, or in bands.

I seriously doubt you are seeing any pixelation.

At any rate looking at the images would help us help you determine what the issue is.

 

[judipurple]

Okay. I think I've figured out what the issue was. In aperture mode, the ISO was on auto...and the #s went into 5 digits (!!!) - anywhere from 14,000 into the mid-20s. UGH. Grainy much?

Okay - I will post some shots (raw vs jpg) - but I have to say, I think this was [likely] a classic amateur/newbie "oops"... and a good chance to really assimilate important information.

What I learned in the past 24 hours:
1) High ISO can lead to a "crunchy"-looking picture...like it was shot through a plate full of quinoa... The ISO/F-stop/shutter speed - truly a magic triangle. Just need to bring the 3 together cohesively and sensibly.

2) I *need* to be mindful of all of the #s - I'm getting there...now that their meaning and use are starting to make sense (and finally starting to sink in...), i.e. slowing down and being aware.

3) Dropbox - Thank you Joe. I need someplace to assemble all these images together and get them backed up and easily accessible.

Bottom line - my issues were due to the idiot behind the camera. Like any computer, camera and newer phone out there - The machine is only capable of doing what you tell it to do...still learning the language.

Thank you for your patience during this oft-frustating path I'm on.

 

[Ysarex]

Okay. I think I've figured out what the issue was. In aperture mode, the ISO was on auto...and the #s went into 5 digits (!!!) - anywhere from 14,000 into the mid-20s. UGH. Grainy much?

Okay - I will post some shots (raw vs jpg) - but I have to say, I think this was [likely] a classic amateur/newbie "oops"... and a good chance to really assimilate important information.

What I learned in the past 24 hours:
1) High ISO can lead to a "crunchy"-looking picture...like it was shot through a plate full of quinoa... The ISO/F-stop/shutter speed - truly a magic triangle. Just need to bring the 3 together cohesively and sensibly.

2) I *need* to be mindful of all of the #s - I'm getting there...now that their meaning and use are starting to make sense (and finally starting to sink in...), i.e. slowing down and being aware.

3) Dropbox - Thank you Joe. I need someplace to assemble all these images together and get them backed up and easily accessible.

Bottom line - my issues were due to the idiot behind the camera. Like any computer, camera and newer phone out there - The machine is only capable of doing what you tell it to do...still learning the language.

Thank you for your patience during this oft-frustating path I'm on.

Some reading for you: Want a better understanding of ISO?
http://photojoes.net/class_notes/chapter01.html

Joe

 

[judipurple]

Dropbox - DSC_0001.NEF
Dropbox - DSC_0001.NEF
Dropbox - DSC_0001a.jpg
Dropbox - DSC_0001a.jpg

I am still learning how to post pix/links sorry if this is redundant...

 

[dxqcanada]

You probably already figured this out: Nikon D3400 Guide: How to use the Auto ISO function

 

[Designer]

The ISO/F-stop/shutter speed - truly a magic triangle. Just need to bring the 3 together cohesively and sensibly.

This is misleading. The ISO value represents applied gain. Like turning up the volume on your radio. My advice is to ignore the "exposure triangle" meme and concentrate on exposure. As I posted above, the best solution is to add light.

 

[Designer]

More thoughts on high ISO: Some cameras handle high ISO better than others, and there is software that can minimize the visual effects (noise) of letting the ISO go high. Aside from the adjustment on my normal editing software, I don't own any other noise-modification software.

 

[Ysarex]

Dropbox - DSC_0001.NEF
Dropbox - DSC_0001.NEF
Dropbox - DSC_0001a.jpg
Dropbox - DSC_0001a.jpg

I am still learning how to post pix/links sorry if this is redundant...

As noted you underexposed the sensor in your camera right to the limit. The noise is a result of underexposure. The sensor in your camera has a maximum recording capacity and at that capacity it delivers a clean signal. When the light level drops and we need to keep the shutter speed faster to hand-hold the camera we're forced to start underexposing the sensor. We do that by raising the ISO value which then biases the meter to calculate a reduced exposure (raising shutter speed). In the case of the photo you just posted you are using less than 10% of your camera sensor's recording capacity. This is two sided: Losing over 90% of the sensor recording capacity you've got to expect something has to give -- you got noise. On the other hand it's really amazing that our modern camera's are capable of getting a photo at all for us under these conditions.

That's a serviceable photo for many applications and I'm not going to do the actual math here but you got that photo using only some single digit percent of your camera's sensor's capacity. Amazing!

Amazing #2: We have processing software to deal with the noise. There's only so much we can ultimately do but we can do a lot. I applied a medium level of noise reduction to the photo as posted here. More is possible but detail will begin to suffer.

F/11 in this case was not a good idea. You could have taken this photo at f/5.6 and recovered two stops of lost exposure and that would have made a huge difference.

P.S. Agree completely with Designer here. Do not let that exposure triangle rubbish pollute your thinking. Exposure = amount of light per unit area applied to the sensor and is a function of the illumination level in the scene + time (shutter speed) + f/stop. ISO is not an exposure determinant. The quality of your photo is a direct function of exposure. Read the links I posted above.

Joe

 

[judipurple]

Wow, thank you Joe - you fixed it! What did you use to reduce the noise? Judging from the info I've found, the software fix is $50-130. I think, between the price and the learning curve, I'll be calling these 3 dozen pix an education and apologize for the poor quality when I share them with my sister.

 

[Ysarex]

Wow, thank you Joe - you fixed it! What did you use to reduce the noise? Judging from the info I've found, the software fix is $50-130. I think, between the price and the learning curve, I'll be calling these 3 dozen pix an education and apologize for the poor quality when I share them with my sister.

Noise filtering is almost worth a book by itself. You have the Lightroom/Photoshop software duo I believe? Both LR and PS contain noise filtering options. In LR you'll find it under the Detail tab. PS has some fairly capable noise filtering (look under the Filter menu). A lot of folks do like to short-cut the effort to learn the PS option and instead buy one of the various plugin products on the market. Topaz Denoise is a current favorite.

I processed your raw file using Capture One which has very good noise filtering and I did a first pass noise removal there. I then used the specific noise filtering product NeatImage for a second pass.

A more sophisticated approach of filtering the different tonal regions (shadows, midtones, highlights) at different levels would produce an even better result.

In your case you could have avoided the heavy guns noise filtering by dropping that f/stop back to 5.6. The noise filtering in LR then should have been sufficient.

Joe