astar,
I'm having a little difficulty understanding your problem. Do you mean that the display on your LCD screen is darker than your final picture? One thing you can do is increase the brightness of your display screen.
I was finding that when I used Auto White Balance, my pictures were looking "washed out" to some degree. I changed to using one of the camera's Preset White Balances, like Daylight or Cloudy and have been a lot happier with the results.
Also, take your camera out of Manual for a little while. Put it in P mode and take a few shots. Let the camera decide what the settings should be in different scenarios. Take a little notebook with you and jot down what those are. {In bright sunlight, the camera chose A,B,C. In indoor settings with this kind of light, the camera chose X,Y,Z, etc.) That might help you make your own choices down the road when you put your camera back in Manual.
Remember that, in most shooting situations, you want to adjust your settings so that the meter reader is settled on Zero, right in the middle and not skewed too far to the right or the left.
Steve Thomas
