pixels, dithering

[musicus]

I have taken some pix with my Powershot SX170 and they have much pixelization even tough it's an

outdoors pic and there shouldn't be a problem with the clarity. The settings I used are Auto and Live. 

Why am I not getting a clear, clean photo? Thanks.

[rs-eos]

We really need to know though _what_ resolution settings you are using.

For photos, see the above user manual reference.  What, specifically is the setting you are using? L, M1, M2 or S?

For video, your camera has two settings: HD or VGA.  And I was mistaken above that HD would be 1920 x 1080.  Your camera's HD is 1280 x 720 (less than 1 MP) and VGA I believe is 640 x 480 (same resolution as for still images of size 'S').

If your resolution of your stills/movies is too low, that would definitely be one factor in the low quality you are seeing.

[musicus]

I am looking at "Number of 4:3 Shots per Memory Card". What do I press on the camera to see

the resolution amount? 

[musicus]

Still trying to figure out what to press on the camera to

"ensure your camera is not set to capture low-resolution images."

[rs-eos]

As I posted before, please see page 36 in the user manual (link provided in that post).

What is the size setting for your photos? L, M1, M2 or S?

What is the resolution setting for your videos? HD or VGA?

[musicus]

Good, thank you, now I see the difference between the L, M1, M2 and S. Do I assume the

setting stays the same after I turn on the camera later? (I'll check on the HD or VGA later.)

[kvbarkley]

Yes it does remember the setting.

[musicus]

Just to clarify, you are saying that stills are determined by the L, M1, M2, S settings. Good. Then are video settings

then determined by HD or VG? If so, can we say that the graininess on my videos is determined by the lighting?

I have decent interior lighting (I might be wrong on this) beefed up with a Godox LED spotlight but the spotlight seems to make no difference on the video graininess. The vids are online (YT). Should I link to one of them here so you can see it?

[rs-eos]

For photos, unless you always plan to have very tiny versions uploaded to the web, there's no reason to use the 'S' (small setting).  It's best to capture L (large); giving you the most flexibility later.

For video, you camera can either shoot in HD (1280 x 720) or VGA (640 x 480).  Yes, please provide links.

One guess is that if you shot in either of those (especially VGA), then scaled it up to 1920 x 1080, that would certainly explain things.