I’m glad you like it!

The twigs stand out due to the lighting conditions. I didn’t do anything to intentionally make them pop. Them beight light colored and me bumping up the “whites” probably plays a factor though.

I generally try to underexpose my pictures to avoid blowing out the highlights and I then bring back the shadows in post-processing. My editing usually consists of playing with shadows/highlights and blacks/whites so that I get maximum detail from the shadows without any too bright spots around the edges distracting from the subject of the photo. Generally this also includes adding vignette and often also a gradient filter on the top/bottom of the photo to lead your eyes to the centre. I also try to keep the darkest parts of the photo dark gray instead of black. For moody photos like this I usually also bring down the vibrance for more realism. In daylight shots I do the opposite. I do this all by eye.

Almost all my photos also contain some amount of “dodge and burn” meaning locally brushing in darker and brighter spots all around the picture to make the lighting more interesting. I never use any color filters but I tend to adjust the white balance more towards the warm side.

One good tip for editing is to not save it when you think you’re done. Put it away for a little while and then come back to it. Our eyes get used to the look of it pretty quick and we tend to go a overboard with the editing. More often than not I end up toning it down a bit.

Here’s the settings for this picture:

I’ll PM you a link to my Pixelfed incase you want to see my other pictures. You’ll probably be able to pick out the common theme between them.