Originally posted by Marc Sabatella If there was such thing as "best" settings for all people in all situations, those would be the defaults and there would be no way to change them. Opinions on best settings will differ from one person to the next even for one given photo, and will also vary from one photo to the next. Rather than obsess about getting it "perfect" in camera - there is no such thing - just find something that works pretty well most of the time in your opinion, and expect to perhaps need to custom process some pictures individually.
But if you are curious what settings others use, do browse this and the beginner's forum for the dozens of existing threads on the topic.
Maybe Lesmore is just curious in trying new settings to maybe find that he/she will like one of our settings more than the current ones. I can tell you that I like to err on the side of the "more". Higher contrast, almost max sharpness, higher saturation, higher high/low adjust, and even hue.