I’ve found the trick to lightening photos without making them look faded or washed out is to pull them into Lightroom, go into the develop module, and hit “Auto” to start with a balanced exposure. Then take the Shadows slider and move it to the right to brighten the shadows. Next, take the Blacks slider and move it to the left. This takes the black areas of the photo and makes them dark again - a saturated black rather than a washed out gray.
If you’ve got the latest version of Lightroom, you can also play with the “dehaze” slider. First, pull your Shadows slider to the right to brighten those dark areas. Then adjust the Dehaze slider to remove the faded or hazy look.
It’s all trial and error to figure out what settings work best for a specific photo, but hopefully this will help. As everyone else has said, why don’t you post one of the photos so we can see what you’re working with? Then we can give you more specific direction.
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