taking good pictures with my new digital camera has been a nightmare.  Mostly I try to use the natural lighting, but taking outside pictures is a hassle and during the rainy season here in FL, is not always an option.  I have been asking around and never really found the true solution to my problem.  Not only that my daughter and I were wasting tons of time on the computer trying to edit the photos with our photo software to help make the best of what we have. 
My new camera is a 10 MP and a good brand, fuji, but it is more tempermental than the last one, which was about 7 MP, also a fuji.  That being said, all the pictures have turned out marginal at best. The color of the material on the item I had made and was photographing was never well-represented.  Sometimes the shots were blurry.
Anyway, lots of browsing on the web brought me to this tutorial, which once I put these things I learned to use, I should have excellent photos without all the time wasted doctoring them up.
I have bookmarked this site, and you should too!
http://www.theswitchboards.com/articles_professionalphotos.html