I didn’t quite understand that either. Do they mean a thread in a post that was on r/all?

Use the obvious stuff. If the goal of sharing is people seeing your photos, the more obvious the better I figure…

As for selling, think of what anyone you know might actually buy. The only photos anyone I know has actually bought are photos of their children or themselves during their wedding.

Even with famous or professional photographers, normal people don’t buy their photos directly, companies do. We buy stuff that happens to have their photo on it or were advertised with those photos. Try taking photos for a local diner’s menu or call local website developers and see if they need a photograher to take photos of their client’s business for a website?

First things that came to mind:

Lower saturation Decrease color temperature (make a bit warmer)

Pull back highlights Push midtones - I think this is the key to getting that paradoxical underexposed/high contrast look Increase shadows

Add grain

The last three portraits were probably underexposed 2/3rds to a full stop maybe.

Learn to recognize the effect of the different controls. It takes some time playing around, but honestly, I found it really fun and interesting.

A simple example is by practicing on your own photos and seeing how shifting the color temperature up or down affects the colors, you’ll be able to recognize the same thing in other people’s photos.

To copy a particular photo’s vibe exactly, just download a copy for personal use, add it to lightroom and do a side by side with a photo of yours that looks like it was taken in a similar environment but is straight out of the camera (preferably a RAW photo). Now just play around till you get the same vibe you admired in the other photo.