What settings on my Canon T2i will give me the most clear, colorful, crisp photo?

For example - Shooting outside with the kit lens (17-55mm), I normally drop my f-stop as far as it can go so I can have a relatively fast shutter speed. My ISO is usually set at 100 and lately I've been messing with the color settings, changing it from standard, to portrait, to landscape, etc. What should I do to get the best looking photo? I'm camera tech savvy so don't hesitate using fancy camera terminology.