Need help with a photo problem

I am having a weird problem that I hope someone can help me with. I took some photos recently and when I downloaded them and then opened them up to process them I noticed a strange pixelation pattern that shows up in areas like the sky or OOF backgrounds that looks a little like a checkerboard pattern instead of a smooth gradation that you would expect. I am not talking about pixels showing up when I zoom way in like 400% or bigger, I can see this checkerboard pixel pattern quite noticeably at 50% and it gets worse at 66% and 100%. The pattern does not show up, or at least it is not noticeable in areas with lots of detail. It is only showing up in smooth areas like the sky or OOF background areas.

As far as I know I am doing everything pretty much the same as always. I haven’t changed any of my routines or camera or computer settings. I don’t know if this is a camera problem or a computer or software problem or something else. All I know is that the pictures as I see them on my computer are unusable. My printer is broke so I haven’t printed any out so I don’t know how they look on hard copies.

I am adding a picture to this post. This photo is an extreme example of what I am talking about. It looks almost like one of those old paint by the numbers paintings. Instead of a smooth gradation you get these areas that look almost like a topo map. The checkerboard pattern is in the area where the change from a darker to a lighter area occurs. It is easier to see as you zoom in closer on the picture. Most pictures are not this bad and the effect is not so noticeable but with this photo it is easy to see what I am talking about.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Robert Bunch

I think it is called
Posterization

Indeed, this is posterization. The linked article covers what causes it. It can also occur when the image is grossly under exposed and you try to correct that by increasing exposure in post processing.

I think it would be helpful if you had included your tech info. Nice photo of the bluebird.

Thanks for your help. I finally figured out what was wrong. When doing conversions in my raw converter Nikon ViewNX2 there is a sliding bar that allows you to set the quality of the conversion from lowest quality to highest quality. This sliding bar was set to low and all I had to do was move the slider back to highest quality to correct the problem. It has always been set to high but somehow it got changed to low and I have no idea how that happened. I guess I inadvertently or accidentally changed it. Anyway the problem is solved. Thanks again for your help.

If you recently updated ViewNX2 that may have done it. I've found it set to lowest quality/highest compression setting after an update. Don't know if it is every time or if it was an anomaly that once.

Dan,

Thanks for that information. I will keep it in mind the next time I update ViewNX2. Since I haven't updated lately I don't think that was the problem on this occasion. More likely some unintentional blunder that I made but thanks again anyway.