From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishgrainygrain‧y /ˈɡreɪni/ adjective TCPCSa photograph that is grainy has a rough appearance, as if the images are made up of spots
Examples from the Corpus
grainy• Aged Gruyere: Five years old, this cheese is grainy and piquant with a sweet, long finish.• The photo is a grainy collage of blacks and whites, with dots and lines scratched across the murky background.• Its defrosting is subtle, gradual: but Eisenstein rather than Antonioni: grainy, gritty even.• Another video weakness to guard against is the coarse and grainy look of plain surfaces in bright primary colours, especially reds.• grainy mustard• I stare at the screen while they show a grainy old black-and-white photo of me, younger, with longer hair.• Below the fold was a grainy photograph taken on primary night.• It also includes a grainy, retouched photograph of the man holding the death mask in his hands. 