Low-quality JPEGS Being Produced

A couple of days ago, I noticed an on-screen notification that PSE 2022 had been updated. Since then, the application refuses to produce high-resolution JPEGS. I'm working with 10-11 MB snapshots from a DSLR that I normally expect to produce cropped and edited images of roughly 4-6 MB when I save them at a quality level of 12. Now, despite the settings, which I have rechecked to the best of my ability multiple times, my photos are saving at a pixelating 500 KB or so. Am I missing a setting, or is it possible that the update created an issue?