Editing photos on new MacBook Pro

I don't know if this rendering of the photos shows the quality difference as I see it on my screen. The first photo is a blurry shot. The second photo is the actual clear shot, but only appears in the screen after I strike the edit key. Once I hit done, it goes back to the blurry shot. Does this make sense? Am I still storing the photos incorrectly?

I have an external drive where photos are stored in addition to those kept in the Mac/Pictures/Photos Library. Each new year I open a new Photos Library File and delete the previous year off the Mac. Everything is kept in the same format (Canon RAW files or reduced to jpegs for social sharing). Please excuse my ignorance if I am answering incorrectly, I'm not tech savvy. Thank you for your help.

My son stopped by this evening and said there was a fix but only on a per picture basis. You rotate the pic counterclockwise, then return it clockwise to the original position. It seems to be working, why? Seems like this came up in Aperture years ago.

Thank you. I started up the Mac in the safe mode. Only noticed the very last photo as a blur, but I think I'd changed all of the others by the rotation method. They were all perfect. I'll have to take/upload more pics to see what happens next. Should I upload while in "Safe" mode?

Nope, neither loading or editing before, during, or after closing down safe mode did a thing. Do I need to take it to an Apple Store and let them look at it, or do you have any further suggestions. I really do appreciate your help and patience.

Again thanks for your help. Made an appt with the Genius Bar at Apple. The "Genius" tried to refuse my request to remove and reinstall MacOS. He told me I was unable to understand that RAW files on the new screen in hi-def would appear fuzzy because of all the info they carried. He reluctantly agreed to the reload after berating my intelligence for 15+ minutes. He reloaded the OS, then had me sit and begin the reload from my backup....after 2 hours realizing that I would still be sitting there after the store closed suggested I pack up and finish at home. He claimed that no data would be lost and all I had to do was open the laptop and press start. NOT! Reloaded OS at home, reloaded backup at home, and now Photos works perfectly, as do the associated apps!

This is the present version of Photos on the Max.

I think this is what you asked me to try. I am still having to go through