Help Sought: Pixelated images on digital picture frame

[Maligator]

I take some amount of pride in my ability to find solutions to problems like this, be it by trial & error, Google Fu or plain luck. So I humbly come before the CC board to ask for help.

 

I have photos from several vacations loaded onto my wife's HP DV1010v1 digital picture frame. Photos from everything but our latest cruise show up crystal-clear, but shots from the latest cruise are heavily pixelated. Image size, ratio, DPI, format, etc are all identical to the others. I used the same camera on the last 3 cruises.

 

I have tried re-sizing, rewriting and sacrificing a virgin to appease the gods. I have tried loading the photos directly to the frame's internal memory and using a SD card.

 

Google yielded similar questions on a variety of other brands, but no real solutions. CC Photo & Tech Gurus, can you help?

[pierces]

This may be a "do you have your computer turned on, sir?" question but are the new photos perhaps in a format other than JPEG?

 

Is it possible the new shots were with an Adobe RGB colorspace instead of sRGB? Adobe RGB may be incompatible and the frame will only display the small embedded preview image

 

All I have for now.

 

Dave

Edited April 20, 2015 by pierces

[Maligator]

I'll check the RGB setting when I get home. The only difference I can find is that I saved the original images as TIFF files, which I resized and saved as JPEG for the frame.

[donaldsc]

I'll check the RGB setting when I get home. The only difference I can find is that I saved the original images as TIFF files, which I resized and saved as JPEG for the frame.

 

This has no relevance to your question but why did you save your pictures as TIFF files instead of RAW files.

 

DON

[Maligator]

I shot them RAW, as I do every shot I take. After processing, I save as TIFF, which is a full size file, rather than a compressed JPEG.

[donaldsc]

I shot them RAW, as I do every shot I take. After processing, I save as TIFF, which is a full size file, rather than a compressed JPEG.

 

I may be missing something. I understand why you do not want to save them as a lossy JPEG. However, TIFF files are generally very much bigger than RAW files so why don't you save them back as a RAW files but with a modified name.

 

DON

[Maligator]

RAW files can only be generated at the time a photo is created in the camera. Once you edit, the RAW option is gone.

[pierces]

RAW files can only be generated at the time a photo is created in the camera. Once you edit, the RAW option is gone.

 

As an occasional RAW shooter...

 

On the occasion that I use RAW, I just import and do most (95%+) of my corrections in Lightroom which is non-destructive. If I need to do any heavy editing, I choose "Edit a Copy" or "Edit a Copy With Lightroom Adjustments" which is set to save the result as a 16-bit .psd. All RAW adjustment capability is retained when you return to Lightroom from PS. When I started using Lightroom, I do the same with JPEGs since the workflow is identical.

 

Any online or other display of the photos is from exported JPEGs.

 

Just my 2¢...

 

Dave

[TruckerDave]

RAW files can only be generated at the time a photo is created in the camera. Once you edit, the RAW option is gone.

 

 

This makes NO sense whatsoever. You do not lose your raw file once you do some editing. And there is no need to save as a TIFF. Just keep whatever file type your camera produces. I don't think you really understand what RAW is and isn't. And color space AbobeRGB or sRGB make no difference in raw, it only matters when you export as a jpeg. And after you process (edit) why does it matter if you save as a jpeg? jpegs are basically finished products.

Edited April 22, 2015 by TruckerDave

[Maligator]

Perhaps I'm not communicating clearly. I understand RAW is a general term for what a camera produces. What I explained was that you cannot take a RAW (whatever name each manufacturer has for it) image, mess with it in an editing program, then save the result as a RAW file. One has to choose another format for the edited image. I happen to use TIFF. That's all I've said.

 

Nevertheless, none of them have produced anything but a pixilated image on her frame. This despite being identical in every way to the images that show clearly.

[peety3]

Some brands use proprietary RAW formats (Canon, Nikon) - Canon's format is losslessly compressed, whereas Nikon's format is not compressed. Other brands use generic RAW formats (Minolta/Sony) - Minolta/Sony makes a TIFF file as its "RAW" format.

 

Editing software can create a TIFF or JPEG from any of the above formats. It (almost definitely) cannot create a Canon .CR2 or Nikon .NEF from a TIFF or JPEG.

[pierces]

Some brands use proprietary RAW formats (Canon, Nikon) - Canon's format is losslessly compressed, whereas Nikon's format is not compressed. Other brands use generic RAW formats (Minolta/Sony) - Minolta/Sony makes a TIFF file as its "RAW" format.

 

Editing software can create a TIFF or JPEG from any of the above formats. It (almost definitely) cannot create a Canon .CR2 or Nikon .NEF from a TIFF or JPEG.

 

Ix-nay on the iff-tay re: Sony RAW. The .ARW files are a compressed RAW format not TIFF. Hopefully they are going to offer an optional uncompressed high-bit version as rumored.

 

Dave

[Mr. Click]

First to try and address the original question..check the file size on the saved jpg images. They maybe small and that is the most common cause of the pixelation. When you push a small image too far, it falls apart.

 

The whole RAWvs TIFF issue.. I am a Canon shooter so I can only address Canon RAW. The camera creates the RAW files, when you go to open them in photoshop you get a window to do your toning and fixing. Once you are done with that image you have several options. You can open in PS and then see if you want to do any tweaks or crops and then you can save it, but your save options art TIFF, JPG etc. You cannot save the file as RAW. Now, go back to your RAW window and you will see options there to save, cancel or close. If you close it the RAW file with your corrections are saved over the original, but you can go backward to the plain original when you open it again, the save option gives you the same TIFF, JPG, etc options as opening the file in PS. Cancel just closes the RAW window and does not save your work on the RAWs. So, if you want to skip the whole RAW window each time you open that image but you don't want to compress it, you need to save it as a TIFF file. I am not a Lightroom user, my own personal preferences are to edit in Photo Mechanic and then tone and crop in PhotoShop. That part is just my personal comfort zone because I have done it for years.

[peety3]

Ix-nay on the iff-tay re: Sony RAW. The .ARW files are a compressed RAW format not TIFF. Hopefully they are going to offer an optional uncompressed high-bit version as rumored.

 

Why would you want an uncompressed version? RAW formats might be compressed, but in a lossless way. Wouldn't you rather a compressed file than an uncompressed file?

[chipmaster]

I take some amount of pride in my ability to find solutions to problems like this, be it by trial & error, Google Fu or plain luck. So I humbly come before the CC board to ask for help.

 

I have photos from several vacations loaded onto my wife's HP DV1010v1 digital picture frame. Photos from everything but our latest cruise show up crystal-clear, but shots from the latest cruise are heavily pixelated. Image size, ratio, DPI, format, etc are all identical to the others. I used the same camera on the last 3 cruises.

 

I have tried re-sizing, rewriting and sacrificing a virgin to appease the gods. I have tried loading the photos directly to the frame's internal memory and using a SD card.

 

Google yielded similar questions on a variety of other brands, but no real solutions. CC Photo & Tech Gurus, can you help?

 

So did you figure it out?

 

I have seem that several things can impact quality

 

1) Resolution selected: 320, 480, 640, etc.

2) compression option for jpg

 

Those seem to be the only two things that can be going on. Of course if you used some incorrect or suboptimal noise reduction during your RAW to jpg conversion you could end up with lots of pixels, low compression and still an awful result.

[pierces]

Why would you want an uncompressed version? RAW formats might be compressed, but in a lossless way. Wouldn't you rather a compressed file than an uncompressed file?

 

To clarify; Sony's RAW format uses a lossy compression that is optimized to only remove redundant data. Though I have never encountered and loss of expected detail or dynamic range from .ARW files, I would like the option of a lossless format whether compressed or not.

 

Dave

[Maligator]

So did you figure it out?

 

I have seem that several things can impact quality

 

1) Resolution selected: 320, 480, 640, etc.

2) compression option for jpg

 

Those seem to be the only two things that can be going on. Of course if you used some incorrect or suboptimal noise reduction during your RAW to jpg conversion you could end up with lots of pixels, low compression and still an awful result.

Nope. I may try it on another frame and see if I can duplicate the results.

[Dan-Tan]

A bit late to this, but I was having the same issues but I did find a fix to it. I have only tested this through one image so far but it seemed to work.

 

I converted them into JPG-JPEG using XnConvert (I am not advertising this product, it is just the one that worked for me). With the Format settings (in the Format section) as shown in the attached image. Preserve the Extension and the Metadata whilst maxing the quality and setting the DCT to "Float (Best but Slowest)". This worked for me and I hope it will work for you as well should you not have found an answer by now.

[Victress2007]

Perhaps if you have the original RAW files saved you can go in, save as a jpg and see if the frame pixelates that one.

 

Vic