RedBrick1, I've been having the same problem, so I've been researching. Here are some quote's I've pulled out of different articles.
YouTube will take whatever picture you upload and convert/re-compress it to a jpeg using really, really low compression...they aren't displaying your original file. Much, much worse with picture that have a lot of fine detail, it's better with pictures with less fine detail and solid areas of color.
Another Person wrote:Sharpen your avatar till it looks like an explosion in a glass factory and then upload it.
I tried that, and it works okay but it's not the best. There's improvement, but it's not good.
The closest thing I got to good was to take a picture with a better camera, better settings, sharpen it, and it's okay.
EDIT: solution solved (for me) I've always been using a jpg file, but I just switched the image to png, and It's fantastic.
Last edited by Mason (January 15, 2011 (07:58pm))