Sometimes little things count
I rarely throw away images, even from years ago unless there is a pretty significant problem such as poor focus or studio lighting was radically wrong. The image on the left was from about 10 years ago looking down a heavily forested mountainside. As you can see the trees are very dark. I remember that trees being a very saturated green color growing along the mountainside.
Obviously there are a few things that one could do but I wanted to be subtle and not blast the image exposure and have to go back again and tone down the guys tee shirt and probably the rock face. I also wanted to maintain the texture on the rockface without necessarily going back into photoshop.
So I made some very gradual changes to:
Each change brought be just a little closer to what I remembered, but I wanted to try just one more slider.
I moved the color grading shadows wheel slightly toward the green side. The combination of these gradual changes gave the trees back the full saturated look that I remembered. I could of course go back into the image in photoshop and tone down the tee shirt, since that could be still a little bright.
These gradual changes directly translate to other time saving steps in editing or during the actual photoshoot. In the studio, gradually adjusting lighting, even one light at a time, can save you effort in having to make multiple camera adjustments or lighting changes mid shoot. In editing portraits, a little editing is often enough unless you are trying for a very special high glam look (in which case a model choice is also important). When using Lightroom presets, some are now adjustable much like the opacity slider found on the adjustment panel in Photoshop.
Sometimes "A little is a lot" and can save time both during the photoshoot and during post processing!