Trouble with Taking Pictures & a Camera Recommendation

My daughter has a Nikon Coolpix which is a small, digital, point and shoot, camera (with a ton of possible setting but she just uses automatic and movie setting) but has amazing pictures. I have a Pentax IQ zoom which is a lot older, but also a great camera.
I would think that the program you are viewing the pictures in might be the culprit, not the camera, unless the colors also look wrong on the camera viewscreen. I use Picasa as my photo storage/sharing software, it is free AND it has editing capabilities, so perhaps a such a program may help.

My Nikon D3100 is amazing. We took pictures in Burano Italy and I swear the colors looked better on the picture than in real life. This camera picks up the actual colors regardless of lighting.

Now this is an 800 dollar camera but the same technology goes into the Coopix which can run as little as 79 dollars.

I use a canon 50D and I love it! But, what helps with the colors is setting the right white ballance. Do you shoot in auto or manual? If you shoot in manual you can set the camera right and what I use for setting the white ballance is a grey card. I think they are around $30 on amazon. If you need any more help, I'd be happy to come by and show you some stuff.

Nikon anything is *amazing*!! Are the colors showing up wrong on the camera, or on your computer screen? Or is it just capturing the wrong color altogether? You can try using/not using the flash (which I'm sure you already have)... sometime's the flash, even with proper lighting, makes a difference. Kind of like the pupil of your eye, and how it dilates or constricts with light/dark...

Good luck!!

I have a Nikon D40...it's simply amazing and takes great pictures. In my opinion. You can come down and borrow it!!