Lower image quality after transfered to computer?

[starwiz]

I was taking some pictures with an S20, and afterwards, I stuck the CF card with the pictures into my PDA. I remember zooming in and admiring the quality--I could read the time on my watch quite clearly. I had a witness to this feat of image quality as well.

I transfered the images to my computer via my PDA, and the other person taking the pictures used her camera, both connected to our computers via USB ports. When we both looked at the same picture we looked at earlier, we noticed that the quality was significantly lower; the numbers on my watch were barely legable, even when I moved the jpg back to my PDA from my computer.

I haven't edited the files at all since the arrived onto my computer.

Perhaps I'm just imaging things...that seems like the simplest solution, though my friend and I _did_ see the same thing. I see no way that somehow the quality of these pictures would degrade like it did when it's moved over a cable. Still...that's what it seems like.

Any ideas as to what's happening?

Thanks a lot,
-Starwiz

[Jamie]

I don't have any idea. But you should test it. Just try and do the same thing again to make sure. Take more photos of your watch! :)

The only thing I can think of is that the first image you saw wasn't a jpeg, it was an uncompressed RAW file. That would explain why the image looked worse after it had been converted to jpeg.

If you were definitely looking at a jpeg the first time, then maybe the jpeg was recompressed into another jpeg? That would definitely result in a noticeable loss of quality.

Was the camera held on its side (portrait) for the photo? The only reason I can think of for something to recompress a jpeg would be if there was some crap software that rotated sideways photos and it recompressed rather than adjusting the original jpeg.

I don't think any of these ideas will be the cause of the problem, really. It's just worth mentioning them just in case.