ok so this might be a dumb question but i genuinely cant figure out what people are doing in lightroom or whatever to make their aerial photos look so good. like i see shots on instagram or whatever and they just have this quality to them, the colors are rich and everything pops but it doesnt look fake or over processed either. mine come out looking either flat and boring or i go too far the other way and it looks like a video game.

i think my composition is actually getting better, ive been trying to use the grid lines and look for natural leading lines and interesting patterns from above which has helped a lot. but even my best composed shots still look kind of underwhelming once theyre on a screen. shooting raw on a mavic air 2 fwiw. is there like a starting point for editing aerials specifically or is it just practice and learning to see it

honestly a lot of it is just learning to trust small adjustments. i think when people are starting out they push sliders way too far because subtle changes are hard to see at first. my usual starting point for aerials is bring the highlights down quite a bit (sky recovery is huge), lift the shadows slightly so you dont lose detail in dark areas, then do a gentle s-curve in the tone curve to get that contrast back without blowing anything out. after that its mostly hue/saturation stuff ? i usually desaturate aqua a little because drone shots almost always have an overblown teal cast in the sky, and bump up orange warmth slightly for any earth tones.

the thing that took me longest to learn was that a lot of the magic is actually in the white balance. aerial shots often come out slightly cool and correcting that even a tiny bit makes them feel more alive. try warming yours up just a little and see if that helps before you do anything else

composition wise ? one thing that really clicked for me was stop trying to center everything. like the symmetry stuff is cool but it gets old fast. try putting your main subject at the third lines and leaving some negative space, especially if you have nice textures like fields or water to fill it. also dont be afraid to fly lower than you think you should, a lot of people hover super high and the shot just loses all sense of scale and depth. getting closer to subjects makes aerials feel way more dramatic