Correct lighting and exposure can create good contrast and saturated color of the object. So here is the reason why, beginner who would like to use Photoshop to adjust their photo, will normally adjust contrast and saturation. Photoshop is important in photography, or I may say image processing software is important, no doubt, its help a lot in photography, and we really need it, because this is DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY. But in my point of view, adjusting contrast and saturation in image processing software is not encouraged. We should make use of image processing software, but not this way, because we can have nicer contrast and saturation through a correct lighting and exposure.
So now is the problem, how are we going to know whether it is a correct lighting? Simple to say, a lighting which can create good contrast and saturated color is a good lighting. Here is an example, image A and image B.
Image A
Image B
Look at the grass, compare two image, definitely image B has higher contrast. So u get it? =)