How I personally edit most of my photos in post production.
There are many methods of processing an image but here's one "quick and easy" way, especially if you have many photos to edit.
Many beginners in wildlife photography also need to learn the basics in post production methods especially when shooting in RAW, a file format which has not been internally edited by the camera and just like in film days needs to be developed, therefore using a computer and a specialised photo editing software, such as Lightroom, Photoshop, DXO,.. and many more.
Below is the original file directly from the camera at 400mm 1/800s f/5.6 ISO 400 EV+0.3 and not cropped 4800 x 3200 pixels. Camera profile neutral.
And with some very quick adjustments, below is the final output.
Here are the settings used in Lightroom after having passed the image through a denoise program.
As you can see from the settings to the left, I have not changed exposure or added contrast this was all done using the other adjustments just below in the 'Tone" section using the slider and watching for clipping in the histogram.
TIP use the alt key while moving the slider to see the clipped parts of the photo and adjust accordingly.
Simple, no ? Obviously, we could go further and adjust the colour tones, etc.
If you want more help using Lightrooms' post processing system get in touch and we can see about a personalised photo editing course.