Yes, I have read that part of the manual, but it didn't help. I also read the post on this forum that said to turn off gamma correction, so I did that, and it still didn't help much.

When I hit the render button, the colors are completely different than they are in the preview window.  The reason this is an issue to me is because I take all of my textures into Paint Shop Pro to get just the color that I want. The preview shows the materials in the colors that I made. But as soon as I hit "render," my custom colors are gone! For example, I made a deep golden blonde color for my character's hair, but it renders as a dull brownish grey.

So, I'm asking for both specific and general. Specifically, what changes do I need to make to better preserve my colors? Is it something in the render settings, the lighting, the material room settings, or a combination of all of them?

More generally: Is there a "rendering for dummies" that explains what the various render settings do in plain language, and some basic tips on how to make things look sort of good? What is the best resource for learning the basics of rendering, lighting, materials, etc., in terms of just making things look how they're supposed to look?

Thank you very much.