Please Help! Grainy pics

[Sleeping Beauty fan]

We just got home from a Magical vacation and put our pictures on the computer. As we were looking through them, we realized they all look grainy. I am freaking out a bit! What could cause this? Is there any way to fix it? We used the same digital camera we've had for a few years. Thanks for any help!!

 

[WillCAD]

It would help if you could post a few examples.

The term "grainy", in a digital image, most often refers to noise. Noise can be caused by a number of different factors; the most common is using a high ISO setting. Noise can also be caused by too much JPG compression.

Fixing the problem depends entirely on the root cause, for which we will need some more info from you and a few example pics.

- What nake and model of camera did you use?
- What ISO and white balance settings?
- What resolution? Fine or normal?

 

[captaincrash]

If you could identify your particular digicam - we could look up the menu screens and perhaps recommend some adjustments that might help.

In advance - I suspect you somehow shot a lot of dimly lit images. SO - if you were in full automatic then your camera boosted the ISO sensitity of your camera to compensate. On many pcket digicams this rapidly exceeds the performance limits of the design. Put another way - normal daylight or bright rooms can be shot with the sensor gain set for ISO 100 with a normal shutter speed and aperature. Normal meaning the shutter is fast enough to allow a slightly shaky hand held shot. But when the scene is dimly lit - the automatic setting on your camera wants to preserve enough shutter speed to enable a hand held shot. Well then - to compensate for the dim lighting the camera has only three adjustments left - 1) open up the aperature (but this is a limited tool as most lenses on pocket digicams are not all that exotic and "fast"), 2) fire the flash - but most pocket camera flashes are of limited power - and even so - the more powerful professional flashes can only reach so far. 3) the camera can BOOST the amplification on the sensor thus making it behave as if it had a higher ISO performance. This is not without certain tradeoffs. The most common with over apmlification on the sensor being the introduction of digital distortion - most commonly referred to as grain or digitization in the image.

More expensive DSLRs have larger sensors and are far more sensitive without significant amplification. That is one the major advantages gained in shooting with most DSLRs.

SO - what would be a solution? The cheap fix is to learn more about handling you present digicam WITHIN its' limitations. This might mean .... to force the camera to not shift the ISO beyond a certain point and not exceeed it's capabilities for delivering a grainless image. Most likely this means using at least the "programmed" (semi-auto or "P") mode - or its' equivulent. In most "P" modes you can adjust a few of the variables - ISO setting is usually one of them. SO - simply all you need do is remember to manually SET the ISO at a level appropriate to your conditions (and not to over boost the semsor and intorduce grain) - and remember that you may have to steady your hand for whats most likely a longer exposure when shooting in low light. Lean against something solid, or hold your breath and "freeze" yourself to take a couple shots in hopes of getting one that is steady enough for at least ONE good shot. Or, make sure you are within your cameras' flash range to the subject. AND enable your flash to a proper setting.

Otherwise - the more expensive solution is buy a more powerful camera. Plus - since DSLRs are functionally different, generally capable of being more complicated, bulkier and heavier, and the accessories available are far more diverse. Further complicating this is the far greater number of accessories available - and the different combinations and configurations for equipment - AND the general understand of differing capabilities with various combinations of equipment. AND... then to apply the right techniques and adjustments with your configurations for various conditions and subjects. Now... I know I'm making it seem a lot more complicated than it actually is. BUT then again - to varying degrees I am not.

So - I hope this gives you some idea - and please let us know what model digicam you have.

Cheers! And a happy 4th of July weekend to you!!!

 

[Kelly Grannell]

best thing is to send us the full resolution of one of the grainiy pic. You can send it to ask.kelly@kiwihouse.com and I'll have a look-see.

 

[pisco]

I also posted this to the original thread on the Community board.
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More than likely the camera was set at a higher ISO than normal which will introduce digital noise to your images.

The good news is that there are a couple of excelent programs you can get for free that will help with this problem. Noise Ninja and Neat Image. I use Neat Image myself as I prefer the interface but both program do an excellent job of reducing digital noise. I would recommend downloading them both and giving them a try to see which one you like better. If you have a large number of images to clean up it would be worth purchasing your favoriate of the two as the pay verions allow you to batch process as many images as you want. That would probably svae you many hours of work.

Good luck in rescuing your pictures.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

There is free version of Neat Image and Noise Ninja? I thought only Imagenomic Noiseware CE that's free.

 

[Sleeping Beauty fan]

Thanks for all the relpies. I don't have any pictures on the internet yet, so I can't share any with you at the moment. The camera is a Nikon Coolpix 4300. Thanks again for the help and I will get some pictures posted as soon as possible. Thanks!

 

[Kelly Grannell]

all you need is sending a full resolution picture via e-mail to ask.kelly@kiwihouse.com No need to have the pic to be on the net (which usually will be resized by the hosting place anyway... which is useless for us to analyze the pic)

 

[captaincrash]

The 4300...

.... is a pretty good pocket digicam design. I like the fact it has the mid sized image sensor at 1/1.8" versus 1/2.7" sensors which are generally have more of a challenge being the smallest and having some of the smallest pixel sensor sites.

Your probable solution is to select MANUAL mode. This allows you access to shifting/setting many aspects of the camera while still enjoying automatic exposures. Go to the "SHOOTING MENU" and select "ISO". You will have 3 choices... 100, 200 and 400. Your grainy images are most likely from the camera selecting 400 automaticly. For the BEST quality... you want to take it off "AUTO" here and reset it for ISO 100. If the light is somewhat dim - you can go into the menu and reset for 200. Using 400 is probably the point where your image sensor produces images that are breaking up... otherwise they would have given you an ISO 600 or 800 setting. I suspect that even ISO 200 has noticable noise.

There also is an option to activate "NOISE REDUCTION". Once enabled it acts when your shutter speed falls below 1/30th of a second. Obviously, at this speed you need a very steady hand or tripod. You know - as inconvenient as it sounds - making use of a little pocket mini-tripod (legs about 2-4" long) can improve you shots in dim light tremendously.

Here is what one review on your camera said about the manual mode. It is not critical at all - just explanitory about what the "M" mode does:

Manual Mode: Following Scene mode, Manual mode (black camera icon with a "M") gives the user control over all exposure settings, with a choice between Manual and Program AE exposure modes (accessed through the Shooting menu). (Note that "Manual" mode here means that you have control over multiple camera functions, although shutter speed and aperture remain under camera control by default. The "full manual" mode I've referred to above is accessed via a menu choice from within this mode (see below) and lets the user control shutter speed and aperture directly.) The Shooting Menu offers the following options:

I might add that if the lighting gets a little dim... you MUST take very steady shots. Lean against something that is firm or SOLID... like a wall. Also, when the lighting is dim your subject must also remain still. HOWEVER, if the lighting is really dim and the subject is CLOSE - your camera should trigger a flash automaticly and your image will be captured if close. The lighting will probably appear artifical with a flash but - often a flash can stop the movement in your subject like a brick wall to a flying egg. IE, jumping into a pool the flash will create a frozen moment with the water spraying about ... that is ... if your AF can get the focus right. Your flash range is about 10 feet or 3M. The various sites give different values and interpretations of this - so just assume its a 10' range.

THE FINAL consideration.... you should make certain your image capture setting is at "Hi-Quality" (only available in 2272x1704) or "Fine Quality". You have two lower quality capture settings - "normal" and "basic". I can easily predict that if you were shooting in "basic" and low light with the green "A" AUTO setting - then your images are certain to be grainy looking. However, your memory card will give you the most number of shots. Setting your camera to the "Hi-Quality" setting will drop your shooting capacity to its' lowest. If you can't take enough pictures with your best (largest) card... then go buy a single huge memory card - memory is very cheap now! Shoot in the highest quality your camera is capable of (you paid for that power!)... and steady your shots in ISO 100. Try using a minipod and remember the few shots where you used the pod when reviewing the finished shots. As long as your subject is not also moving - your images will be of the best quality that your camera design can produce.

Hope this helps.

Tomorrow I'm gonna visit North America's largest Anime convention! 100s if not 1000s of people will come out in full costume dressed as their favorite Anime characters. It should make for a fun photo shooting opportunity. I've never been to one of these before and it is sure to be "colorful" if nothing less! Here is an image of what I'm expecting:

I referred to DPreview, DCResource and Imaging-Resource to patch together this reply. Take a look at these sites for insights into the capabilities of your camera.

 

[pisco]

There is free version of Neat Image and Noise Ninja? I thought only Imagenomic Noiseware CE that's free.

I could be wrong about Noise Ninja but I know Neat Image has a free version because it is the one I use (though not so much since I moved to a DSLR).