You can really play around with the edits in LR. The first Temple Dragon below (left) I pushed the whites and vibrance a little too much, so the clouds got blown out and the orange at the bottom right got a little ‘excited’.
When I redid the 2nd dragon photograph, I dropped the highlights early on and had stronger shadows. I also toned down the saturation a little. I then created a preset called ‘Dragon’, and re-applied these same changes to the first image.
Result was #3. Overall, colors seemed a tad stronger, esp. the red/yellow flowers and greenery in the center bottom areas. Also, the clouds came out looking a little darker. I wasn’t too happy with the Dragon’s nose, so perhaps I could improve that!
Temple Dragon
