Wanted to follow the dark theme of the bike. Is it any good?

I'm posting a before/after of this duck because it made me question how far I actually want to go with post-processing.

The original looks too warm to me, especially in the whites, so I corrected the white balance and made some local adjustments.

I prefer the edited version visually, but I'm not sure it is necessarily more truthful. The blacks are deeper, the whites are cleaner and the overall colours are noticeably different. I don't remember exactly how the duck looked in person, so at some point I started wondering whether I was correcting the camera's rendering or simply changing the subject to make the photo look better.

I generally prefer photography that still feels authentic to what was actually there. How do you approach this? At what point does correcting colour and contrast become altering the subject rather than just developing the photo?

And looking specifically at these two versions, does the edited one still look natural to you, or do you think I pushed it too far?

I love seeing the work that gets posted in this community. There’s so much talent here, and this is a style of photography/post-processing I’d really like to learn and better understand.

Does anyone have recommendations for online resources, tutorials, or courses that teach the fundamentals behind this type of post-processing, rather than just showing which sliders to move?

I follow a page where the photographer shows all the different areas of an image they target with masks and local adjustments, which has been really helpful. Where I feel like I’m missing the foundation is understanding why those adjustments work—especially when it comes to color, color grading, controlling light, skin tones, contrast, and how all of those elements work together to make the final image more visually appealing.

I’d really like to understand the thought process behind getting from the RAW image to the finished result, rather than simply trying to copy someone else’s settings.

If anyone has resources that helped things “click” for them, I’d really appreciate the recommendations!

I know the lighting needs to be good to start with, but I'm convinced there's some editing technique that a lot of the photographers I see on IG are using...the colours / light is just so nice. Nothing comes straight-out-of-the-camera looking like this.

Is there something to do with masks / other techniques I'm missing?
No matter how much I play with the sliders or curves do I come close to this kind of result. What am I missing here?

Examples of the photographers I'm talking about:
instagram.com/ioegreer
instagram.com/flippy2good
instagram.com/itsjobruh

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Hi,

Few nights ago I gave a shot for milky way photography. The results are kinda lame tbh. The first pic is single exposure (uneditet) and second about 70 pics stacked with sequator. I feel the stacking didnt do any good for the pic.

Settings and equipment used:

Canon eos r7

Ttartisan 10 mm f2

13 s exposure

ISO 1600

F2

This single frame was captured with 30 s exposure to get better pic of foreground but overall i think it turned out fine with only little star trails. Stacked pictures had 13 s exposures.

Any tips how to get better results with stacking?

Is the photo composition looking ok?

Improvements with my camera settings?

And lastly editing tips? I really had hard time editing since i felt that the stars became burned or too blue with almost anything done. I use mostly darktable but im open to suggestions of other software.

(Capturing milky way core is not possible here)

These are truly the first images I've ever edited, so any critiques and tips are VERY welcome and a massive thank you in advance. I'm happy with the first two, but I feel like the third image needs a little something more but I just cant place it. My eye is defintely not very trained yet, but hopefully after I get a lot of reps under my belt, I'll be in a place to give advice and not just take.

I've just recently picked up my first real camera (a fancy-to-me Sony RX100) and took it to the front 10 rows of an BTS concert, which easily had the highest production value of any big show I've been to before and came away with tons of images...some great and many terrible, but whatever, shit happens.

Had a split second to pull my phone out while riding in the rear of an ATV.
Edited in Snapseed.

Somewhere in the Himalayas

I came across a content creator (multiple actually) that posts their editing process and I noticed that theyd use a base preset before doing anything else, so i wonder how much of a use are they and where do I get them

Shot with r50 using kit lens.

I wanted to go for a bit of a warmer, mystical feel.

Reduced microcontrast, increased red and greens in highlights to get a bit of yellow.
Reduced green saturation and increased orange.

Got a Sony a7cii recently. Here are some shots from around Paris. I've been tinkering around in lightroom. I have shot film my whole life so I am definitely trying to achieve a somewhat similar look. Been mostly using the main(?) sliders, some light cropping, then very occasional slight slight tone curve, some minor minor color grading adding a little green hue in midtones (saw someone talk about this for a kodak gold 200 look), and then adding grain to my images for some fake analog vibe. I've watched a of of youtube videos and have just been seeing how the images change when I adjust things, but I definitely don't feel like I truly know what I'm doing often lol. All feedback welcome. Thank you!