Sky Background and Illumination: Washed out Renderings

I have an architectural model and try to render it with sky background. If I use "Background and Illumination" for "Sky", the Renderings appear somewhat washed out and colourless, more or less grey in grey. I have atmosphere off, and the problem is the same for final gathering on or off.

Can anybody help? Thanx!

Have you tried reducing the sun intensity?

can you post a picture of your drawing so we can see what needs a little tweaking.

Sorry, at the moment, i can't. I will do so tomorrow, time allowing.

I tried sun intensity up and down, but the results just get darker or brighter, but not more saturated in colour.

what is LIGHTINGUNITS set to?

I have been experimenting with this too.

I have had some conflicting advice, some say use sky background & sun settings, others say use a distant light as the sun.

which do you guys prefer?

I prefer the sun, because you can set accurate date and time to simulate actual sun and shadow on a building. For the customer to know.

Of course, you can have the sun shine from the north ... to sell shady properties.

I set Lightingunits to 2.

Still no time to upload sample pix at work, and today I forgot my memory stick with some pictures.

Same here. You can have a better quality if you use the sun and sky. Try to look at this on HELP = Sun and Sky Simulation. Hope this hepls

At last, I have a little time to add the pictures I was talking about. See, what I mean? Both projects seem bleached out and over-exposed. When I turned down the lighting, the yjust became bleached out and underexposed ...

is it lacking ambient light? also what are the reflection/surface values? I assume that's supposed to be more of a vibrant green? Seems like the surfaces are too reactive to the light... like too rough or something.

I would also use image materials for the surfaces...