I’ve just come across this great series of Lightroom Post Processing video tutorials from Serge Ramelli. I’ve tried his technique on some of my own photos and I really like the high contrast, punchy results it delivers. In general terms he does the same basic processing at the start of each photo.

I’ve adapted this to my own preference as follows:-

Highlights – Reduce to -75
Shadows – Increase to +75
Whites – Hold the Option key on Mac and simultaneously increase the whites until you start to see pixels appear
Blacks – Hold the Option key on Mac and simultaneously decrease the blacks until you start to see pixels appear

Increase the contrast a little (~+10)
Increase clarity a little to +10

Increase sharpness to about +40
Increase luminance Noise Reduction to +40
Increase Colour Noise Reduction to +40

In lens correction, tick the box for chromatic aberration reduction.

I’m still not totally happy with the noise reduction part on some of my shots but the above will give you a good starting point.

From then on I make minor adjustments to saturation, vibrance etc.

I thoroughly recommend you watch his you tube tutorials. Try this one for a start.