Hello!

I'll preface with saying that I'm a beginner... I am a Canon user (T1i/500D as well) which appears to be somewhat of the minority around here. Even though I'm not terribly active on the site, I will say that the people here are great!

Anyway, have you played with Picture Styles? Depending on what format you are shooting (RAW or JPEG), a pic style will have an effect on your image (it will only be applied to the JPEG; using DPP, you can apply one to RAW in post processing). There are some defaults for your T1i/500D and I think that "out of the box" it will use the 'standard' style. You can alter the settings for any picture style, say, bump up saturation, color tone, etc. Or, use a different style (like Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, etc.) or create your own. I believe you can download some as well (as I haven't done that yet, I can't say whether it will add to the available list or if it will take over one of the custom ones).

FWIW (remember, I'm just a beginner!) --

I see what you mean about the little girl. I'm not sure what to say about that one; maybe something's off with the white balance (did you use auto?) as it looks a little gray to me.

The next one up; maybe the sky is overexposed which is casting a white-ish glow across the shot?

The oak leaf looks pretty nice to me.

I really like that last one (although, as Phil said, the sky looks a bit pale). It looks so different then home...

On top of what others have said... you are being letting down by the great British weather too sunshine and blue skies can make a great difference to colour.

Hi, thanks for your comments.
I have PS6 but haven't really had a chance to play with it much.

All of these pictures were taken on dull days or early evening but i don't know how i can compensate for that, i hoped there might be something i could do with the camera or after to warm/brighten up the tones ????

The first picture is of the village where my grandparents were born, Grappenhall, which is about 10 minutes drive from where i now live..... I had actually gone to take a picture of the stone effigy of my ancestor which is still in the village church.

The little girl, my niece, actually has red hair ( ginger) which looks blonde in that picture but it ha been raining heavy and rained again not long after the picture was taken.

Grappenhall - thought as much.

I'm from Stockton Heath

The only issue to me looks like the metering, as it was a grey day the camera has metered off mainly the architecture and so blown the skies slightly.

In the pic of the little un, looks like a high iso, and needs a levels tweak with the black slider being moved to the start of the curve in the histogram.

As for the colours in general, flat light gives flat colours. A few tweaks in the 'shop can help like a saturation boost or the addition of a warming filter layer.

Is the arch from Rivi?

Hi, thanks for the adivce and yes, the arch was taken at rivington. i intend to go again, when i know what i'm doing with the camera and the weather is better.

If you revisit a place take a hard copy of the photo and do a comparison check with reality. Note any differences and that will give you a basis to work from.

Bazza

Thanks, that's a good tip and not something i would have thought about...

Andrea