Problem with dim pictures

[Farvus]

I've been digital painting a lot but I still have one problem that annoys me all the time. Pictures look very dim. I thought it's a matter of not enough saturated colours but I changed levels and it still don't like it. Is it matter of contrast between shadow and highlight? Is it saturation or something else?

Here's my recent piece with this problem.

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/3936/sp245jn.jpg

[Farvus]

Ok. Right now there are:
- A bit darker shadows with colder and more saturated colour.
- A bit brighter highlights with warmer and more saturated colours.
- Colder and less saturated colour for background.

Does this solves the problem?

http://img303.imageshack.us/img303/1092/sp24b0np.jpg

[glikster]

I don't pretend to know that much about painting, but I know that the mid tone just before the darkest part of an object is generally the most saturated. It's not washed out from exposure and it's not hidden in shadows...

One thing people suggested to me is to try using super-saturated (well, I guess not TOO super-saturated..) colors first, since you can always tone them down afterwards.

[Farvus]

Thanks for reply, glikster.

It makes sense what you said here. In the night everything looses saturation and warm colours so it can be like in shadows. The closer something is to white, it also looses saturation.
In the second pic I tried to manipulate with levels and then use the colour picker to see how the palette change. However levels didn't help totally.
I think one of the problems was lack of middle tone.

[Shamagim]

I sometimes find the "Color Balance" option to be a little more effective than just changing the levels.

You can also change the saturation of some areas using the "sponge" tool ( but carefully)...If that doesn´t work for you, you can either paint it over or paint in a layer underneath the one your working on and change it to "multiply", etc etc, Photoshop has way to many possibilitys to fix this kind of problem.

One thing though, the best way to see if you got the values right is to see how does it look like in black & white. ( just use the hue & saturation thingy and preview the image)

[nafa]

To show brightness, you have to contrast it with darkness. Right now, all the areas surrounding your "bright spots" are not so dark, so the viewers' brain would not register brightness at all.

It would be a good exercise to try painting some sparkling gold. If you are successful in conveying the "sparkling" effect, you should have no problem in getting rid of the dimness.