VSCO is my go to app for photo editing, and sometimes I will send it over to Light Room for color adjustments.

First, I send the image to VSCO and apply the filter. I always use A6 because I like the warm tint and low exposure it gives. I lower the filter intensity to around 7 or 8, sometimes lower depending on the picture.

I usually then lower the exposure to balance the sunlight in my pictures, and it makes them a little dramatic in a way. However, this picture has a lot of shadows in the bottom, so I boosted the exposure a little.

Next, I always lower the contrast to around -1.5 to remove sharp lines and harsh contrasts.

This sounds a little contradictory to what I said for the contrast, but next I sharpen the image. This just gives it a better quality look and highlights the grain that we will add later.

I've started adding warmness up to +2.3, but this picture was posted during the summer so I wanted to keep the editing a little lighter for my theme at the time.

The skin tone tool smooths and develops the yellows in the picture a little better, in my opinion.

Finally, I add a decent amount of grain, but I never go over +4.9. Too much grain can make the image appear low quality and I definitely want to avoid that look.

As I said above, this is a process that is always changing from year to year, season to season, and picture to picture. I will post an edit process for outdoor pictures soon as that's where I most use Light Room. I think the tools in that app can do a lot for an outdoor scene.