jwallen it may be the resizing of the photo to get it to fit in the space of your avatar is more than likely what is distorting the pixels of the photo causing a washed out effect.
Good luck

Jwallen, check the size of the image. Some cameras and phones take whopping big pictures when saved as jpg files. Some are thirty inches across!! Don't know why they do that. Try using the resample function of a graphics program (I use Corel Photopaint) to change the size of the image to 4x6 inches. That may help. Also, if the image is 300 dpi (dots per inch) or more, you may see considerable degradation when it's downloaded to your profile. The memory size of the image is greater than what F&S will allow and the image is automatically resampled down to 72 dpi. If you're scanning images from photos I recommend setting your scanner at 72 to 200 dpi. So, in a nutshell, either your image is too large in physical size (i.e. 30x16") or the quality is more than F&S can handle (i.e. 300 dpi). If you need more help hang in there on this thread and I'll see what I can do for you. Good luck.

Kenton, I don't have that option when I right click. Actually, that image looks fine to me on my computer. I'm wondering if this is an operating system difference. Are you guys using Macs?

I've found that the cell phone photos are kinda lousy compared to those from a real camera. Just not enough megapixels to not come out grainy.