MAKE IT POP!

Many beginning photographers would consider this image their end point. 
But it still appears a bit flat. There are two good choices at this point. The first choice is to use the Auto Contrast feature in Photoshop. To do so, select Image>Auto Contrast. Doing before making other final corrections, however, may introduce too much contrast as we proceed. 

My preferred technique, at least when there are oranges involved as in much fall color or Southwest landscapes is to use the Calibration sliders in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw. To employ this action, go to the bottom of your adjustments panel and select Calibration. Slide the Blue Saturation slider to the right until you feel like the oranges both increase in saturation and contrast.

The result will cause the oranges and yellows to literally jump off the screen. The side effect, however, is that the blue saturation increases as seen most easily on the top right side of the waterfall shown here. If there were sky or bluer water in the image, you would really notice how it was overdone. To correct for this, go to the HSL Color Mixer and select the blue color. Reduce the blue saturation by moving the Saturation slider to the left until it looks right to you.

Now that you have reduced the blue saturation, we have an image that has attractive color balance and contrast. Before we do anything else with the contrast, we will advance to what is commonly referred to as Border Patrol. That is the subject of next month's lesson.