Love the title, and a great shot of this little guy. And yes, I would back off a little on the darkening. I also would back off on the vibrance (I think, but may be saturation or just too much lightening of the overall image ) of the green. I think the green in the original is more realistic. But that is me, since I shoot a great many birds I'm often confronted with the subject being too dark and when I lighten the image the green gets to light. You might just try choosing the subject in LR and lighten just that...it also might take away the highlights being so blown out in your edit. I love the image and the reinforcement that many of these wild animals we shoot are quite sentient.   Posted: 03/10/2023 10:24:18

Love it! The image brought a smile to my face. I like your crop and the action. I agree with Sherry, if you select the subject and increase the shadows it will maintain the sharpness in the thinking arm and the belly, which I think became soft with processing. It will also keep the green leaves from being over saturated.   Posted: 03/10/2023 13:16:36

Very cute subject. Funny as well, great title and composition.   Posted: 03/11/2023 18:12:53

Really nice photo. Funny how we would all edit it a bit differently. That's the creativity. The only thing I would change is to drop the luminosity on the green through the color channel section. Love the expression and action with its hand.   Posted: 03/17/2023 13:41:54

Who doesn't love a monkey? I think your original was better than the processed one. Colors got distorted. Cropping and sharpening might have been sufficient.   Posted: 03/20/2023 18:50:01