every time i make royal icing it always dries very dull, i follow antonina's recipe, but i cant seem to get it to dry shiny and pretty. any advice?
also, every time i try to get red icing or black icing it turns out pink or grey... i use the wilton gel colors but can't seem to get a deep enough color (the dull colors make this problem worse)
please help me! 
I don't know about the dullness but I know that I have a horrid time gettingblack and red too. With buttercream I start out chocolate. Hmmm maybe if you tinted it brown then added black that might work. Also maybe get it as pink as you can with pink then add red... don't really know....
your problem is most likely the gel colors... wiltons is good for some stuff if you have to use them but Americolor is the best and you get a truer(sp) shade of the colors with it
What are you using the icing for? Maybe you can substitute a different icing. If it is for icing cookies, I found a recipe on here that I love and I use on all the cookies in my gallery. It dries pretty hard, and isn't dull. It also takes color well. My Reds and Blacks come out nice, it takes a lot of color, but it works.
here is the link to the Sugar Cookie Icing. but you cant search for it under that because whoever accidently spelled Sugar Suagr 
but the link will take you to my favorite cookie icing.
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-6523-Suagr-cookie-Icing.html
thank you all very much! i am going to try all of the suggestions, it is for icing cookies.. a friend of mine is getting married and i want to give her some of the wedding dress/ tuxedo heart cookies, i just want to give her black tuxedos and not grey ones! 
I just made over 200 cookies for my Heart Stacks. I used RI. The Pink and White were nice an shiny. The red was dull. I think it has to do with the amount of color we add...I used AmeriColor Red, but still had to use a lot.
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