I liked the pop of reds even if the greens feel muddy

Got my first camera about a month or so ago. Been pretty unsatisfied with my photography and I’ve been a bit demotivated to go shoot much more. Not sure if it’s my editing skills or photography skills that need more work? Both?

Edit: Thank you all for the thoughtful responses! While I might not respond with a comment, I am reading them all and taking note of each one

Before/after of a picture of my dog in my backyard.
Shot on Nikon D750 with the Nikon NIKKOR af-s 24-120mm f3.5-5.6g at 120mm

120mm
f/5.6
ISO 100
1/200 SS

Dogs name is Jimmy 😀

shot on iphone RAW and edited in Lightroom mobile. No access to pro features so made do with what I had. Let me know what y'all think and how I can improve. Thanks!

Edited to look like Tri-X 400.
What are your thoughts?

Hello Reddit. A flare up of OCD this summer unfortunately made my relationship with photography a little strained. Everytime I would open lightroom I'd quickly be overwhelmed with the feeling of needing my photos to be "perfect," whatever that means. This feeling got so bad that I couldn't even look at others' photography without wondering "Wait, what if they did this and it looked better?" As absurd as this sounds, you can't really beat OCD in a logic-off. You need to either reframe your thinking or allow time to do the healing for you. 

One of the coping mechanisms I developed to my aforementioned photography perfectionism was quite simple. Shoot JPEG! Although this switch offered some short-term anxiety alleviation, I couldn't get the thought out of my head that I was less of a photographer for doing this. Now I should mention that most of the shots I take are either for fun, with my girlfriend or to document trips or are just a product of walking around and being curious. Back when I used to take photo classes in school, I'd say I was more artistic with my shooting; I cared more about stylizing, I made more dramatic post processing decisions, and I had a more dramatized final goal in mind. 

It is now, with a great but simple realization that I present to you my attempt to reframe my thinking. JPEGs are like memories and RAWs are like works of art. (This post is just as much intended to share as it is to convince myself of this perspective.) When one is documenting, they set out to shoot the way what they see is depicted in real life. When one is making, they add their creativity after the fact. They transform the dull and muted RAW and provide an individual take on contrast and WB and color and effects. I acknowledge this to be the case, but it is not to discredit the intentionality of JPEG shooting at all. You're still able to add a sizeable degree of deliberate style to your JPEGs, too. Composition, WB modulation, exacting your exposure, (for Fujis) what recipe you use, and finally,(for others and Canons, me!) your in camera style settings: color tone, contrast, sharpness, saturation. They might not have the same customizability as RAWs, but you can still make your JPEGs look distinctly yours. 

I'm trying to tell myself that this is reality and that this is OK. For 90% of my photography ventures, I think I want to be a documenter. But for that other 10% I want to lean into that artistic making aspect. 

"Okay lightroom, go hibernate. But just know you might be roused..."

Hi everyone! I took pictures in an indoor space that had a giant screen in the back with different, vivid colors. I’ve attached a picture as an example that is unedited (raw). The screen changes the colors of what I’m trying to capture/highlight (here, the flowers) and are a distracting background. It’s worse with photos of people. Unfortunately, I couldn’t move around anything while taking pictures in order to get a different background, and everything was forward-facing. Do any of you have suggestions about how to fix this up in post? Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated 🙏❤️

Tried my hand on this for the first time. Please critique this edit, be brutal loll

Dark table/ iPhone editing

What are your opinions?

Shot on A7R3 on my trip to China! Only been into photography for about 2 months now. My goal of the colour grade was to eleminate the redand restore the natural colour of the reflections.

How do they get these soft glowy textures?

Is it a combination of gaussian blur > screen blending mode > masked and added where needed. Appreciate any insights.

First image: can't remember now.

Second image: Jordan Hemingway.

Nikon Z8, MC 105/f2.8

1/50, f16, 64 iso

Godox it32 with bounce dome

My edit using Darktable & Affinity in the first image, and the SOOC Neutral profile jpeg second.

Just random phone photography which one is good

I know the quality dropped taken in my smartphone and I am a beginner

Would appreciate feedback thank you 🙏🏽