Which brings us to the next point. Even absolute professionals who make their living from photography and have done nothing else for years, edit their photos. In many photography groups I read again and again “I don’t post-process my pictures”. That’s fine, but it doesn’t do you any favors. Almost every image needs post processing.
Whether it’s boosting the depths or darkening highlights, adjusting the color intensity or sharpening. Maybe you want to straighten the horizon or remove a disturbing image element. Something can always be optimized. Whether you use Lightroom, Photoshop, Luminar or Gimp is up to you.
Here you can see very nicely that the original was pretty good in itself. However, it was a little too dark in places.
I emphasized the depths and lowered the highlights. I also turned down the dynamics, reduced the saturation of the yellow and highlighted the orange. Finally, I applied the lens correction. That was it. Despite minimal post-processing, it immediately looks much more lively.