I'm another one who really likes using Lightroom to post-process my photos. Lightroom makes it really easy not only to organize your photos (using the "Library" module), but also to post-process photos (using the "Develop" module).
Most of my post-processing work is done in
Lightroom. If you have Photoshop Elements, you can do the exact same post-processing work using
Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), which is already included with Photoshop Elements.
A couple years ago, I learned post-processing techniques by reading Scott Kelby's book
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers. It's an excellent book, very easy read, lots of screen caps and examples, and easy to follow along.
If you're using Photoshop Elements, then I'd recommend his book
The Photoshop Elements 8 Book for Digital Photographers (here's the
link to the book on
Amazon).
Basic post-processing is surprisingly simple! At the very least, there are
8 sliders in Lightroom / ACR that you move back-and-forth until the picture looks better. If you didn't want to learn anything more about post-processing, you can probably get away with these 8 sliders and walk away with a very good photo.
(BTW, the 8 sliders that I use are: Temp, Tint, Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Clarity, and Vibrance. I usually ignore the other 3 that are available.)
I, then, use the Local Adjustment Brush to do some local
dodging and burning (making certain parts of the photo brighter & certain parts of the photo darker, respectively). Ansel Adams did this with all his photos. Even though you may have gotten the correct overall exposure in your camera, sometimes, certain parts of the image are slightly darker, slightly brighter, or not as evenly-lit as you'd like. That's where dodging and burning comes in handy.
At the end, I may add some
sharpening to my photos and some
noise reduction, too.
Of course, there's tons of other stuff you can do with your photos, like remove spots / blemishes, add a gradient, add a vignette, convert to black-and-white / sepia, etc. It just depends on the photo, and each photo is unique. But for sure, each of my photos goes through the above post-processing steps. Wash, Rinse, Dry, Repeat.
