What did I do? And, can I save it??

[sporadicamateur]

All,
Thanks in advance for the advice. I am at a loss. Not sure what I did, but the ultimate question is: can I save this?
Went on a fairly special vacay, and some of my pictures turned out like this... Would really be nice to be able to save them. I got my camera back to normal, had to "reset to normal." Using a Nikon D7200. I generally don't play with the settings, but had to have done SOmETHING to get these...

 

[NS: Nikon Shooter]

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This was not done "in camera" but by a filter application in a pixel editor.
I can be saved and eventually replicated using the same filter….

 

[480sparky]

The image has been 'posterized' meaning the bit level has been reduced below the standard 8-bit level for a JPEG. A quick check leads me to believe it's been dialed down to 4 or 5 bits. So there's only about 1/8 or 1/16 of the potential data still left in the image. Once the image has been edited and saved, the data is lost.

 

[sporadicamateur]

The image has been 'posterized' meaning the bit level has been reduced below the standard 8-bit level for a JPEG. A quick check leads me to believe it's been dialed down to 4 or 5 bits. So there's only about 1/8 or 1/16 of the potential data still left in the image. Once the image has been edited and saved, the data is lost.

So... If it's still on my camera and I haven't done anything to it, can I still fix it? Thanks for the terminology help.

 

[480sparky]

You might be able to import it into an app, break it down into separate RGB channels, start doing some color swaps and make it look 'normal', but I doubt you'll ever get a 'real photo' out of it.

Were you shooting NEF or JPEG? If the former, the NEF file will be easily converted to a 'normal' image.