Anyone got any good tips for taking better photos?

The thing is, all of my pictures come out really dull looking and 2D. But I see photos on deviantart and flickr all the time that look so alive and vibrant in color and 3D. I realize that many of these photographers use photoshop to enhance the colors, but is there another way to acheive this without the extra software? I know how to use it, and play around with it a lot so I am quite familiar with it, but I don't want to rely on it. With digital cameras (specifically Nikon) is there a better way to get the colors to come alive? Or at least get my photos to look less flat and boring? Any tips would be appreciated.

For example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leightphoto...

the easiest way to make great images is study photography!

great images are made in the camera not photoshop!

learn exposure and how to manually use a camera, good exposure your whites will be white, your blacks black and your colours bright.

want great shots learn Photography forget about photoshop for now, - wont be popular but thats how it is

your example is just a well exposed image no photoshop, taken by a person who knows "Photography"

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Make sure the lights are appropriately placed. Doing so could significantly enhance the color. If you can't change the way the lights are showing, move around and see what works. Also, get some action and emotion in your photos, so they won't look "dull...and 2d." And if you develop your own pictures, make sure you're doing it correctly (with the red lights and all).Hope this helps! =)

watch your lighting and try the methods of 3rds. it means dividing your photo into 3rds and offsetting your primary object to the left of right to give the eye the ability to see depth in the photo if the main object is in the center the brain can focus out the right and left of the photo and only focus on primary object.

light.

Photograph means a pictoral representation of light. think of the camera as graphing the light. If you have no volume created by your light don't expect to see any in the print.

Just photograph beautiful people. No ugly ones.