problem with camera's resolution on full size

[gardengal4]

Mostly pictures are viewed at reduced sizes (1:3 or 1:4 or 1:6 typically) and all looks swell. But when I use an editor to look at the full sized picture to crop or whatever, the picture quality at 1:1 is horrible. (maybe always, not sure).

Here's a link to an example that I uploaded original size pic to Picasa. If you use the zoom tool and zoom to max, you will see the effect I am talking about.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/bn7l8tVBUTvmTXmEEi9G7NMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink

A co-worker of mine also has a rezound. I examined one of his pics at 1:1 and the resolution was fine. We compared settings on our phones and they were the same. We both use the defaults.

Any ideas what I can look for to troubleshoot this? Picasaweb shows the exif data, but doesn't mean too much to me. Plus, I think Picasaweb munges some of the exif data during upload. My desktop Picasa exif data is more detailed but still the two images' exif data look more or less similar.

p.s. if I "attach" or "insert" the image to this post, I am assuming it will downsize it. Any other ways to view the full size image if picasaweb doesn't help.

 

[dplane]

The problem with the Rez can be partially in its settings, causing unnecessary smearing and noise or noise reduction (turn down the sharpness setting!)...read this thread:
Camera tips to take better pictures - xda-developers

And the other part of the "problem" is the compression that's used which can be undone by installing the HD camera mod by Joe Brady found here:
[MOD] 7/09/2012 High res camera ICS Sense 4 / 3.6 / Gingerbread - xda-developers

(for the latter, make sure it plays nice with whatever rom or RUU you're running and that it hasn't already been built into the rom like they did with several of them.

 

[gardengal4]

Thanks for the tips link. I didn't follow much of it, but I will try some of those settings changes to see if it helps, although it still would not make sense why my co-workers camera with the same settings as mine did not have the problem. One thing I noticed on his (good) pic is that the pixel size was 1840x3264 (Port), Mine was 3264x2448 (Land). We are both set at 8MP resolution. Why is that?

Interestingly, when I got the phone, I initially had turned my res down to 5MP. When I saw the problem, I bumped res back up to 8MP but I still had the same issue. Funny that the article says no diffs at 5MP or 8MP. I agree!

 

[tarnak]

The problem with the Rez can be partially in its settings, causing unnecessary smearing and noise or noise reduction (turn down the sharpness setting!)...read this thread:
Camera tips to take better pictures - xda-developers

And the other part of the "problem" is the compression that's used which can be undone by installing the HD camera mod by Joe Brady found here:
[MOD] 7/09/2012 High res camera ICS Sense 4 / 3.6 / Gingerbread - xda-developers

(for the latter, make sure it plays nice with whatever rom or RUU you're running and that it hasn't already been built into the rom like they did with several of them.

Does the HD camera mod require the phone be rooted?

 

[acejavelin]

Does the HD camera mod require the phone be rooted?

Not necessarily, but they do require Amon Ra, TWRP, or some kind of custom Recovery to install, they are recovery ZIP flashable files, but you would likely be rooted in order to flash since there is generally no reason to install custom recovery if you are not going to root or ROM the device.

 

[gardengal4]

And the other part of the "problem" is the compression that's used which can be undone by installing the HD camera mod by Joe Brady found here:
[MOD] 7/09/2012 High res camera ICS Sense 4 / 3.6 / Gingerbread - xda-developers

(for the latter, make sure it plays nice with whatever rom or RUU you're running and that it hasn't already been built into the rom like they did with several of them.

What do you mean by "built into the rom..."? compression? Now that I think about it, it seems unusual to me to find a camera that does not have a compression setting. I've always seen that on non-phone cameras. My co-worker's camera that I am comparing to is newer than mine. Is there something I can check to see if his has some newer compression setting that I don't have? I wonder if I could guestimate such by comparing file size if we both took a picture of the same thing.

 

[dplane]

Some custom roms have the HD camera mod baked in.
Also..yes, unless you shoot raw with a camera capable of it, there is a level of compression happening..resulting in possible IQ loss, depending on whether or not in-camera software enhancements would be beneficial or not (i.e. noise reduction). The HD camera mod more or less gives the Rez a "raw" capture option, resulting in a much larger file size but also prevents the highly aggressive compression on the stock camera app from kicking in.

 

[gardengal4]

Some custom roms have the HD camera mod baked in.

Is there any way to check that on a phone?