New DSLR now all Photo Stream photos are pixelated on iOS devices

Question

I just bought a new Nikon D3100 DSLR and I'm shooting all my photos in RAW. When I import to iPhoto on my Mac all the photos get uploaded to iCloud, cool. When I try to view them on my iPad or iPhone however, they are extremely pixelated. Why would this be?

Answer 1

macmurray2050 wrote:
So I'm better off shooting in JPEG? I thought it was lossy? I don't do a lot of editing, just tweaks with iPhoto sometimes, if at all. I thought the RAW photos I've taken this weekend since I got my camera (my first DSLR) look fantastic, especially on the new iPad Retina Display (when they work).
OK.  Time for a lot of photographic detail...
Yes, JPG is lossy.  This means that you lose some quality each time that you save or resave it.  It does not mean that it loses quality just sitting there.  The worst thing that you can do is to use a photo editor to modify it significantly AND RESAVE AFTER EACH INDIVIDUAL STEP.  You can be fairly confident that you will begin to notice a difference after a hundred or so saves.  Incidentally, the lossiness contributes to keeping the file size relatively small (there are other factors).
TIF is an alternative to JPG.  It is not lossy because it is not compressed and the file sizes are large.  You can resave a TIF a bazillion times and the act of resaving will not reduce the image quality.  TIF also supports layers.  Many high-end cameras produce RAW and TIF files rather than RAW and JPG.
JPGs and TIFs are both undesireable if you wish to do a lot of your own post-processing because the first time that it's created, some unused characteristics are thrown away.  For example, your photo might have a lot of dark shadows blocking someone's face.  More often than not, that can be corrected but the chances for success are much much greater if done on the RAW (NEF, in your case) photo first.  For post-processing, RAW is always the best choice, TIF is second and JPG comes in dead last.
My camera is always configured for RAW+JPG and, depending on the photo, I use one or the other but never both.  My memory card is large enough that I can afford to be careless with storage space.  If I'm shooting my grand-daughter's birthday party, I almost always throw away the RAW files.  The JPGs go right into iPhoto for minor post-processing and cropping.
If I'm taking serious shots, I throw away the JPGs.  I initially process RAW in Lightroom.  I use LR mostly for sharpening, tone control and exposure adjustments.  I especially like the ability to adjust exposure for selected portions of the images.  I then export as TIF.  I feed the TIF files into Photoshop (I now have CS6, whoopee!) for final processing, mostly anything that requires layering, such as deleting/moving objects.  One photo might take me an hour or more with LR and PS before I'm satisfied.  When finished, I crop and export as JPG, which is what goes into iPhoto and s distributed to family and friends.  I never modify the JPG.
Here are some examples of my work.  These are old shots and at least two were taken with a film camera and scanned.  I haven't been updating the site because it's part of MobileMe and it will go bye-bye the end of June.
rbry and I have discussed this in the past and we have similar tastes in photography.  He didn't give as much detail in his post as I did but I suspect that his work flow is not much different from mine.