Grainy picture

[puttster]

I have an HP 2 megapixel digital camera and have it on the "best" JPEG setting. When I print pictures using my Canon S820, the picture almost always turns out grainy and not the right colours.

1. Colours: the gold turns out green and the brown turns out orange. The sky is too dark of a blue.

2. In PhotoShop, when I set the picture to 100% magnification, the picture appears grainy.

So...

I downloaded the latest printer drivers, easy photo print software and exif software. This seemed to help with the brightness of the blue colour - the blue sky is now a more subtle blue. I still have the grainy-ness problem.

I've experimented in PhotoShop, trying to save the pictures with anywhere from 266-300ppi, unsharpened the mask, saved it as a JPEG with the best resolution and highest progressive scan. I've tried setting my HP camera to take TIFF pictures instead of JPEGs. I've tried changing the "film speed" on the camera. Before it was set to Auto, but now I've changed it to 200.

But still, my photos are grainy or the colour is too intense. If there's not a lot of light in the picture, it's too grainy in the JPEG and print. if there's plenty of light, some colours come out too bright (a brown dog turns out orange or a gilded buddha turns out green) while the shadows still turn out grainy.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Thanks,
Theresa

[satnitefever]

For graniness, it could possibly be because of the ISO speed, try for a lowering (i.e. iso 50)

Maybe that could help... =)

[Conk]

Last post is correct. Even in my case I've noticed I'm better off leaving the iso setting to 50 on my A40. Even in low light situations.
Have you calibrated your monitor? This may be a good idea. You should be able to use Adobe gamma for this. There are others available. There are also tools for getting calibration between your monitor and printer.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/colorvisionmonitorspyder/