Photos have ton of dithering?

Question

Photos have ton of dithering?

Hey y'all,

Maybe I'm being too picky, but it seems like the "optimization" that iTunes does to photos synced to the iPhone results in images that are dithered an excessive amount. Put it this way - for a screen at 320x380, 160ppi, photos should look way better than they do. My old phone had a 320x240 screen, not sure of ppi, but the same photos looked a lot better. Same goes for my Nokia 770.

Am I the only one? =\

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Jul 7, 2007 12:52 PM

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Answer 1

Jatek

Level 1

45 points

Jul 7, 2007 5:42 PM in response to Justin D'Onofrio

BUMP!

I'm seeing the same thing. No matter what resolution the source photo is, iTunes "optimizes" it for iPhone and every photo looks dithered. It kind of ***** because twice I've showed family photos to friends and they've ask, "what are those dots?"

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Answer 2

Chas Hulme

Level 4

1,130 points

Jul 7, 2007 5:46 PM in response to Justin D'Onofrio

I have seen no such dithering. My images appear absolutely pristene.

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Answer 3

Jul 7, 2007 5:47 PM in response to Justin D'Onofrio

No dithering here. I use iphoto to get my photos and the downloads are clear. They are taken with digital cameras of at least 6 megapixels. Some are in 1920x1080 and look wonderful.

mac pro 2.66 6gb mem 4 500gb drives 3 in stripped RAID configuration 6gb mem

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Answer 4

Jatek

Level 1

45 points

Jul 7, 2007 7:29 PM in response to Chas Hulme

Zoom into your photo and you'll see the dithering. It doesn't have anything to do with low photo resolution since that would show up as pixelation, not dithering.

The same photo on my HTC doesn't have the same dithering problem.

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Answer 5

jrussell

Level 1

55 points

Jul 7, 2007 7:37 PM in response to Jatek

definitely no dithering here either! My photos are taken by a nikon d70 and brought into iphoto. They look amazing even when i zoom all the way in!

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Answer 6

Chas Hulme

Level 4

1,130 points

Jul 7, 2007 9:31 PM in response to Jatek

Sorry... When I zoom an area I do not see dithering. I see the expected loss of resolution one would expect when zooming into a fixed pixel depth area. I'm not sure what the diff is in your case...

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Answer 7

Chas Hulme

Level 4

1,130 points

Jul 7, 2007 9:33 PM in response to Justin D'Onofrio

I think the iPhone screen is 480x320...

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Answer 8

Jul 7, 2007 9:37 PM in response to Justin D'Onofrio

My images look OK too, a little blurry on highest zoom but nothing unexpected. What resolution is your original image source?

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Answer 9

Jatek

Level 1

45 points

Jul 7, 2007 10:40 PM in response to David Bourne

My original source images are from a 10 megapixel Nikon D40X but it doesn't matter what the source is really since iTunes says it optimizes images while syncing. Too bad it doesn't tell me exactly what it's doing.

Seems like only a few people have dithering issues or maybe I'm just picky about image quality since I'm a graphic designer. I'll go to the Apple store tomorrow and see what they say. Maybe my screen is defective.

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Answer 10

Jul 7, 2007 10:34 PM in response to Jatek

That sounds like plenty of resolution in the original 😉

Don't forget to go online and set up an appointment at the Genius bar or you might have a long wait.

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Answer 11

Jul 7, 2007 10:44 PM in response to Justin D'Onofrio

Hmm. This might be subjective, depending on the person. I have photos from a wdie variety of sources - 2MP cameras through 10MP ones, but overall pretty much every photo has dithering even when not zoomed in. Most noticeable in large areas with similar colors.

Same photos on other devices with, well, lousier screens don't have dithering - and for some of these devices, I've manually scaled these photos down to 320x240.

Really hoping that Apple addresses this in an iTunes update - at least to let us choose how much optimization/scaling iTunes does before copying photos onto the iPhone. It's our 4GB/8GB to burn, and I'd gladly take up more space if it meant better quality photos...

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Answer 12

Jul 7, 2007 10:49 PM in response to Justin D'Onofrio

Just checked some photos on Flickr via Safari on my iPhone, and they definitely do not have the dithering that my iTunes-transferred photos have. Bummer.

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Answer 13

Jatek

Level 1

45 points

Jul 7, 2007 11:02 PM in response to Justin D'Onofrio

So I'm not crazy right? You see it too?!?!

Whew! So it is iTunes doing something totally janky to my photos, and yes I just used the word "janky". I'm gonna go to the Apple store just to see what they say. If it is inherent to something iTunes is doing during optimization and syncing, I too hope Apple releases a fix.

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Answer 14

Chas Hulme

Level 4

1,130 points

Jul 8, 2007 12:33 PM in response to Jatek

Since Justin is the OP, obviously he sees what you do. You commented on his post... Doh!

'-))

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Answer 15

Jatek

Level 1

45 points

Jul 9, 2007 2:16 PM in response to Chas Hulme

Alright, the dithering appears on all iPhones. Just compared it to 5 others with friends and at the store. The dithering is more apparent on darker images. It's not pixelation. It seems when iTunes optimizes images for the iPhone, it's doing something that causes the dithering to appear. Regardless I'm just glad it's not a defective screen, just some bad photo optimization.

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