I've always thought Skyrim looked quite grey and bland, until I got the idea today of playing around with my TV's picture settings. I changed the Picture, Color, Color Temperature and Sharpness to make Skyrim look more alive. The scales are from 0-100, except for Sharpness which is 0-30 and was done on a Sony Bravia.

Picture - My Picture setting was quite high and made the game look quite bright. I dropped it down to the middle setting (50 for my TV) to make the game a little darker.
Color - A little goes a long way here. Previously it was set to 50. This was the main cause of Skyrim's grey hue. I pushed this to 70, which made the colors, especially blues and oranges, look significantly more vivid.
Color Temperature - Previously set to Neutral, I put this on Cool to give a bit of a blue tinge, and also to counteract the oranges which were a bit too strong for my taste.
Sharpness - This one is based more on personal preference. I find that lower settings improves the quality of distant landscapes, so I set it to 0. On the other hand, putting it higher (60-70% of the max) will make textures up close look much better. I advise to play with both and see what you like best.

The end result was a vastly more vivid, colorful, and lively world that I could be immersed in and I figured I would share it with the rest of my console brethren who haven't tried this. Can't wait to see what I can do when I get the PC version .

Very cool Olath! I should tell my bro who plays on Xbox

It wouldn't hurt if you told us your TV brand and model too, seeing the settings are rather individual from TV to TV.

HD also matters, it's harder to make it work on a non-HD tv

Honestly I don't remember the model, all I know is that it's Sony and yes, it is HD. I'll see if I can find the TV manual.

Most HDTVs have these settings though, correct?

EDIT: The TV is a Sony Bravia, 40-in.

Sure, but the settings are individual. For example, color 50 on one TV isn't the same as color 50 on another. There's no universial definition of what 50 exactly means.

If you calibrate a TV, you have to do it on an individual basis. There's no magic calibration number that's "perfect" on every TV.

Oh, yeah I knew that. The numbers in the original post were mainly for benchmarks/comparison and to give a rough idea of how to get the results I did, i.e boost this, drop that, etc.

Edited the OP with my TV model.

So what happens when you watch regular programs? Are they still watcable or are the settings over the top for non-video game content? I know some TVs let you save different combinations of settings (low light, movies, etc.) so maybe that'll help switch back and forth between the game and regular viewing.

That's something I'm also curious to know but I forgot to talk about it in the OP. My TV saves picture settings based on the input, so the input my PS3 is hooked into will have a different display then the input of, say, my DVD player.

That's a neat feature! I'll have to add it to my list of requirements when I shop for a modern replacement to my CRT. Thanks.

Honestly I don't see whats the point in this thread.

1. These "tweaks" don't work on everyone as different tvs have different default settings. Op hasn't even posted what tv he has.

2. These things are pretty much up to personal taste. Some people like warhammer 40k others my little pony.

3. Cmon we are talking about consoles here. As far as I know there aren't any good looking console games.

4. Cmon we are talking about skyrim here. Even with the best graphics mods the best skyrim can is to be almost as good as a five year old game.

All right there Debby Downer.

I for one actually want to see what settings my TV has now and try different combinations. As someone who doesn't have enough money for a PC upgrade (as much as I wish I could) and still loves to play Skyrim on my 360, I actually appreciate this thread. Thanks Olath!

1) Actually, I did post what TV I use. Please re-read the OP. And as I said later in the thread, the numbers I used are more for a reference point. I realize TVs are different, what I aimed to do was give a general idea of how to configure one's display for results.

2) I also recognized this in the OP. I never said that what I did is the absolute only way to make Skyrim look good.

3) Because Crysis on consoles definitely looks terrible.

4) So that's a reason to not try to make Skyrim look better? If anything, I would think this is the reason to make Skyrim look better.