Setting image as Wallpaper degrades quality

[fc000]

Has anyone noticed problem setting images as the lock screen background and having their quality degrade drastically? Several images with gradients, once set as the wallpaper image are degrading the quality to the point that a gradient instead appears as a series of steps between the two colours.

At first I thought it was the screen on the Focus which is partially to blame, but when the images are viewed in the Pictures hub, they appear fine. It isn't until the "Set as Wallpaper" cropping UI comes up that it's suddenly degraded. Anyone else experience this or know a way around it?

 

[JayceeCrumbs]

Might be an automatic compression to save memory.

 

[jmerrey]

There was an app for my captivate that was called "wallpaper set & save" that prevented this. Any wallpaper you set would retain it's original quality. I'm surprised microsoft doesn't integrate whatever technology this is into the entire phone. I've noticed the gradient problem not only with many wallpapers, but some app background, the pictures hub, etc. For a phone whose technology is obviously image driven, this is very disappointing.

 

[karelj]

It's a color banding issue that is a 'flaw' with SAMOLED screens, not the WP7 OS