Please help - I don't trust my own eye anymore

I have been taking youth sports photography shots for years and I am in a rut. Lightroom has left me questioning everything I do these days. Is this sharp enough? Too sharp? White balance "on"? Grass too green? Is this shot natural? Do the jersey colors shine? Should I pull highlights back to get some definition in the sky?

I know this is odd, but could I get some people to give this RAW photo (link is to my dropbox), that I acknowledge is not spectacular in any regard, but which is representative of the color and conditions of most of the series of shots I took, a whirl in Lightroom and tell me your settings?

For purposes of comparison, here are my settings:
Temp: 4857
Tint: +32
Exposure: +.60
Contrast +10
Shadow +14
Blacks -36
Clarity +10
Vibrance +10
Sharpening 61
Masking 26
Noise Reduction 37
Camera Neutral

I'm not a pro. I do this for fun. So many people here are so talented, I'm hoping for a bit of help. I would really appreciate some help "recalibrating" my brain.

you shot at high iso 640 with 7D. 7d has too much megapixels packed in cropped sensor. so sometimes noise can be problem.

i don't have lightroom . i use different raw converter "phase one capture one 5 pro"
so it's setting will not corresponds with that of light room. i have set temp 5200 , tint 3.9
increased the exposer to +1.47 and reduced the brightness to -40 and reduced the saturation of grass
then in photoshop did dodge and burning. i set white balance visually.

i have cataract in both of my eyes so sometimes i have problem with judging sharpness and saturation.

I think overall the image you provided looks ok. The green grass does have slightly too much saturation, and I felt that the player's dark jerseys were a little too dark.

Here's my take on it.

Mike, the grass actually became more saturated in your version.

RandyMN wrote in post #16440141
Mike, the grass actually became more saturated in your version.

Ok, you're right haha. I still like mine though. I hope others do too. I could always de-saturate the greens some.

This was a pretty tough image to do in LR, but here's my shot at it:

Bob, I like that. Did you pump the shadows?

A lot. In LR I set Highlights to -100 and Shadows to +100.

Other tweaks:

Camera Faithful (Process 2012)
WB = Daylight
Exposure = +1.39
Contrast = +29
Whites = -10
Blacks = -52
Reduced Saturation for Yellow by -12 and Green by -14
Sharpening: Amount = 61, Radius = 1.0, Masking = 5
Luminance NR = 21
Color NR = 21
Graduated Filter starting from bottom with Exposure of -.95

I tried to get the R of RGB for the brightest spot on the cheek of the boy with glasses to about 82%.

Your photo is a nice action shot.
I toned down the green of the grass, whitened up the whites of the uniforms and ball, and added a bit of noise reduction. I could of added some sharpening to offset the noise reduction.

I like how white that jersey is. How did you get that while maintaining the nice purple color and the detail in the white part of the jerseys?

I increased the purple Luminance slider to +33. I have no idea the actual color of the uniforms but this adjustment helped the whites. I adjusted the green Luminance slider to -62 to darken and add some detail to the grass.+64 on the orange lightened the faces of the players. (HSL area of Lightroom)

I like colorful photos in general and always go a little too far with it and then back off some. I left this one a little over the edge color wise just to show.

Look at the shoulder of the red-headed boy. The right shoulder has a bit of color to it with a highlight on his back behind his head. Add in the strip of brown field/grass beyound the green playing field and you have a triangle there that can be overlooked and blown out. I like Bob_A's version the best, his and the OP's retain the three tones in that triangle but Bob_A's brings out the shadow details.

But, I'm the guy that can't get lines straight in his images so what do I know?

Ed

Hi. I just pm'd you my edit.
Hope it helps.
Paul

Thanks everyone. I definitely appreciate it!