Pictures become grainy when cropped?

[rweml]

I have a Canon PowerShot SD 1400 IS Digital Elph.  I have had this camera for about 2 years and although I don't use it everyday, I have a pretty good working knowledge of the functions.

Today I took a few pictures with this camera.  When I went to crop the images, they became VERY grainy.  I have never had this happen before.

Does anyone have any ideas on what might be causing this?

My camera did take a short trip down a concrete sidewalk a few weeks ago.  I didn't see any external damage to the camera, I had no trouble turning it on or off, or downloading the pictures and video that were already on it.  I'm hoping that there isn't internal damage! 😕

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks

[hsbn]

Is it heavy cropping? It's normal to see grain when you crop an image especially if the image taken at high ISO.

[rweml]

The original image is 3240x4320 and 4.05MB.

The cropped image is 2100x2892 and 1.46MB. It actually doesn't look as grainy as I thought, BUT I have tried cropping this image several times and it's possible that I've cropped more in the past (and then clicked undo the cropping). I also do not use photoshop or any other professional programs. Only the free ones!

I'm just worried that I might have damaged my camera and that's why the photos don't look as nice.

[ScottyP]

Very unlikely that a drop that didn't kill it would make it look grainier when cropped.

You will notice grain more on large solid darker-colored areas than on patterned areas or lighter ones. Of course higher ISO makes more grain. Could be just the particular picture coupled with your worry about the effect of the ugly drop.

[rweml]

Thanks for your help!  I guess I just had a momentary panic.  There likely isn't anything wrong with my camera.  But I'll keep plugging along and see if anything else weird comes up in the future.  I don't take a lot of pictures (not with this camera anyway).  Guess I need to just chill out...  

[rweml]

It could also have something to do with the lighting, because the photo was taken outside.  I took several pictures last weekend at a wedding (this was post camera dropping) and I just cropped a few of them to see what happened and they looked fine to me!