Photos received in messages are blurry

Hello,

UPDATE: I have resolved the issue. My husband unknowingly had the low quality send mode on, after all. For some reason I can’t delete my post here.

I just got my iPhone 12 mini and noticed that images received from other iPhone users come through to me pixelated. I understand that there is a setting in iPhone that can turn on low image quality but I don’t think that’s the problem in either case. Nor is the image quality low from the beginning. My husband and I compared the photo taken on his phone next to my received message and there is a clear difference.

What can be causing this? (Everyone is setup to send photos over messages in normal quality not low)

note: I switched from Android and transferred messages. Could there be something glitchy about my phone or his phone not recognizing that my message is now iMessage?