Here's your answer to this problem.
You'll need a copy of Adobe Photoshop - I personally use Adobe Photoshop CS2, some of you might be running older versions that might have a slightly different interface but nevermind as all the versions from Photoshop 5.5 onwards have all the features used in this tutorial.
First step is to run Photoshop (Start > Programs > Adobe > Photoshop)
Once the program has finished loading you can load the image you think is looking lifeless into Photoshop
Hot Tip: It's quicker to have a folder open that contains the images as you can simply drag and drop the images into Photoshop
Once you have the image open in photoshop...
You can begin editing the picture.
First thing you can do if the image is under or over-exposed (too bright or dark) you can adjust the Levels...
What this does is corrects the 'White Balance' of the image making it appear brighter or darker or if the image has an odd colour it will correct the problem.
The next step is adjusting the Contrast of the image - meaning you can make the colours sharper and hide those unwanted colours.
After clicking on the menu as in the previous picture a small dialogue box will appear...
Using the bottom slider you can adjust the amount of contrast that you think is needed. You can also use the field above the slider to add a value to set the amount of contrast: Example +20 - this will increase the contrast level 20 points above what the image is currently at: 0.
The step is Colour Saturation. This tool is used to draw out the colours and make them appear more vibrant and more pleasing to the human eye. Have a play around with this and get used to what it does.
After following the menus you will come to another dialogue box...
The middle slider is the Saturation adjustment. Sliding the slider all the way to the right will make the car in the picture look like it's wearing a Hypercolour Shirt or make the person in the picture look like they've had too much sun. :lol: Sliding the slider all the way to the left will desaturate the image and you'll be left with a black&white image. As a rule of thumb I limit the colour saturation to +30 to maintain a realistic appearance to the image.
2nd last procedure is Re-Sizing
This is where a lot of people fall down with their images and they simply rely on their web hosting (photobucket, Imageshack, etc) to resize their images and the web hosting, et-al absolutely butchers the quality of the image when it resizes the image for web consumption.
The first step to re-sizing images whilst maintaining the quality is like this...
The next step is this little dialogue box!
If you are re-sizing for the web you would make the image either 800pixels by 600pixels or 640pixels by 480pixels. This is done by keying in the size you want into the width column, if the image is taller than it is wider you would swap the width for the height. The standard size for Desktops is 1024pixels by 768pixels. you CAN NOT make a small image bigger by reversing this process!! it will get real messy, real fast!!
Finally the last process you have left is Sharpening.
Click on the Menu command and you'll have a picture so sharp you'll make your mouse cursor bleed.
The final image is now ready to be saved (as a copy, it's a good idea to keep the original image un touched). I personally create a folder within the folder that the un-touched images reside in and name it 'processed'.
Final image...
If you have any questions about this tutorial or you're unsure of what you're doing please PM me or add me to your MSN.