I'm bored so I figured I'd start this discussion...

When you're editing photos in Photoshop/Lightroom what do you do to make your photos look good, or what do you think makes photos look good.

I personally like photos that are bright, lots of highlights, and a little bit of clarity.

I like em dark and rule of thirds

I always increase contrast and decrease highlights, then I occasionally increase shadows and decrease brightness if it helps the photo look better in any way. I just use the little editing system on my computer and it works fine.

A bit of clarity Not a little but not a lot, Light shadows, I often put in a graduated filter with lots of warmth and exposure to give it a faded corner look. and then I pretty much mess around till it looks good to me.

Lol never decrease highlights

I like to use photoshop on brightly colored cars. I select the car and increase brightness/saturation slightly and decrease it on the background. What I did here: http://www.exoticspotter.com/ferrari-f430-fort-lauderdale-florida-224142

I always decrease highlights.

For me it depends on the photo. I don't always do one or the other.

Highlights are almost always decreased in my photos.

Contrast up, whites/highlights down, blacks down, shadows up, clarity up, crop to desired, change saturation of particular colors, clone things out, content-aware things out, watermark. Lightroom 6.

I'm going to agree with Martin here.

I start by cropping; I'll always use 3504x2336 (default for my camera), 3604x2336, or 3704x2336. Then I do shadows/highlights, making sure the sky doesn't get too dark. Then I usually make the plants/trees more yellow and more saturated, and then do some color corrections on the car, like maybe adding saturation or taking away more highlights. I sometimes do more color corrections on the sky or on buildings. I'll usually put the photo away for a while, then re-open it to make sure I didn't screw it up without noticing. Once I'm satisfied with it, I sharpen it a little (and sometimes do a bit of noise filter), then finish by hiding my watermark.

I use PS CS3 when I'm at home and Elements 13 when I'm on my laptop.

vintage / grunge
black and white
clarity
faded blacks

Mine is pretty much like andrewo style with a bit of my crazy flares to it.

What happened to Andrewo? He's not active on Flickr either.