Picture resolution quality

[conamor]

Hi,

Quick question.

I take a photo with my D3200-35mm 1.8, the quality of the picture is really good when I view it in aperture but when I use the magnifier and for exemple, look at the face, it is grainy.

I suppose this is normal? Is it because of the 6000 resolution of the picture? Is it the lens/body?

Anything I can do to improve this? I suppose I will never use that 6000 resolution even if I print a 11x14 it should be really clear correct?

Thanks

 

[Bending Pixels]

What ISO are you shooting at? A higher ISO will produce more digital noise (i.e. what you're referring to as grain). Also, are you shooting in RAW or JPEG. If you're using Aperture or another decent image editing program, you should shoot in RAW.

 

[MacCruiskeen]

It's hard to say from your description, but if the magnifier is showing you the image at the level of individual pixels, what you are seeing is probably normal. Which is to say, for various reasons, mostly optics, the camera doesn't really resolve an image perfectly at the level of the sensor pixels. But there may be other things happening depending on the camera settings and how the image was saved (low light/high iso sensor noise, jpeg compression artifacts, etc). The camera's image processor tries to correct for these things but there's only so much it can do. If you are making prints, do the prints look acceptably sharp to you? In the end, that's what matters. Pixel-peeping can run into diminishing returns pretty quickly.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

The magnifier normally increases your view within the loupe to 100% of the image. If your eyes are about a foot or less (12in. or 30cm) from the screen you're going to see some grain.

Think about viewing a poster sized print from 4ft. or more away. Look at the image magnified to 100% from a distance of at least 4ft. and see if it still looks grainy. It should look ok but if it doesn't, it's probably high ISO noise as described above.

~ Peter

 

[conamor]

Thanks!

I will have a look at this!

 

[Apple fanboy]

Also you could always post an example to give people more info. Don't forget to include your settings.

 

[Parkin Pig]

As Apple fanboy mentioned - a screenshot, or post of the image would be useful. Also, the magnifier in Aperture can go up to 1600%, so check that you're not magnifying beyond pixel-level.

 

[Prodo123]

From my experience with Aperture, its RAW processing engine is heavily outdated and gives grainy results to begin with. Try viewing at 100% to rule out any pixelation, and if you could give the ISO of the photo in question we might be able to help more.