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How do I brighten the picture up, make the whites whiter and bring some brilliance to the water with my camera settings? Haven’t gotten into much as it relates to “post” software applications. Have some familiarity with “Photos” on my IPhone, where I think I can do some of that. Appreciate your comments and enhancements!
In Apple Photos I always start with shadow recovery. I’m assuming you shoot in RAW. Tweek the highlights, I then add saturation to the photo. Not too much. I’ll then brighten if necessary, and then sharpen.
I increased exposure on your image, lightened the shadows while keeping an eye on the highlights to prevent them from going too bright, reduced the red channel and possibly increased the blue, and lastly I set the white point on the breast of the bird. Sometimes there is a color cast baked into the image ( white balance) that results in white not being pure white, but more yellow, red, green, etc. In the edit above you ended up with excessive contrast and a red/brown color on the back of the bird.
Think this is better! It was a a very cloudy/overcast day when I took this picture. Have seen several members recommending +.7 for Exp Comp with the D500. Would you recommend a software to begin with?