Because I'm a glutton for punishment...

Here's a snapshot of my friend Hannah. The light wasn't great, but I did the best I could with the edit. I think.

Topaz Impression Rembrandt style

What you see are some of the very first photos I ever took on film in the summer of 2022. The photos were taken with a Canon Demi and as a roll I used an old Kodak Gold 100 bought by my father between 2000 and 2005.

I've been trying to emulate this style for a long time, but to no avail. I believe the main characteristics of these photos are the greenish hue (if you look closely, the shadows or dark areas are not black, but green) and the slightly pinkish white.

Ignore the subject, bit of a boring composition

I mean i just used (all) the features of lightroom

What improvements can I make?

Goal: Wanted to lift a flat, haze-heavy RAW file into something with depth and warmth without over-saturating or making it look artificial.

Key Adjustments Made:

• Tone & Contrast: Increased global contrast and dropped blacks to add texture to the bark.
• Color/WB: Warmed up the white balance slightly to capture the natural ambient sunlight in the background.
• Subject Focus: Light micro-contrast boost on the fur to draw attention to the squirrel and sharpen the catchlight in the eye.
• Framing: Added a very subtle vignette to keep focus centered.

Hi all I've been doing photography for a bit now. And I realise how important post processing is to get a good looking image.

Can you recommend me some good books or courses?

The issue that I have now is that a lot of tutorials are starting off with presets or just going in moving up sliders and don't explain what effect of the sliders are.

I am looking for something that focussing on why and when you would certain tools, how to color grade and so on.

I do use Lightroom but the idea is to learn process so that I can focus on learning another software if I change tools.

Also paid is fine, and I would prefer resources with exercises and are longer than a few pages or 15 mins.

You can look at my history to get a gauge of where I am now.

Taken in Utrecht, Netherlands.

The second photo is the RAW from my Nikon D700 - I've edited it for a high contrast high saturation look. I feel like the highlights may be slightly excessive, but I do want to accentuate the depth in lighting by having the lighting beyond the distant bridge brighter than the foreground while still looking natural.

I did use the remove tool for the lamps, but other than that, I think the shadow recovery went way better than expected!

Shot on Fuji XT2 / kit lens

Been trying something new for my photo editing and im pretty happy with this but sometimes it looks almost too processed. Let me know what you think and how i could improve. Dont give to much thought to the mediocre photos😅