IPhoto pictures appear grainy

I am new to this forum and am in no way an expert on computers or photography- so excuse any stupidity in my questions.
All photos that I have uploaded to iPhoto appear grainy, blurry and appear to have problems with highlights and just appear very bad. Not just the thumbnail versions, even when viewed at maximum size. The pictures look the same when viewed with Preview too. I use a MacBook Pro, Mac OSX 10.5. iPhoto version is the '08 version. Wondering if updating it to the '11 edition will help?
This first happened when I transfered all pictures to an external hard drive and emptied out my iPhoto library. Now, any new imports seem to look grainy at all resolutions. The pictures all appear fine if uploaded onto a PC [rather than my MacBkPro] from my camera which is a 12MP point and shoot Canon. The problem is I have deleted the originals from my camera's SD card, so I need to find a way to get these pictures on my Mac back to looking good. I cannot just do another transfer from the camera SD card to my PC- wish it were that simple!
I'd appreciate any input! Thank you in advance.

How did you transfer the photos to the EHD?
What are the pixel dimensions of one of the "grainy" photos?
Do you have a backup?
LN

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