Hi Erika! Amazingly, most of the 100+ photos I took came out beautiful already without anything. So hard to pick and choose through those for this post. However, I did remove some of the stark blue sky behind them so they would stand out more as the subject and I added some soft lighting behind them to highlight their expressions. That is probably it - they really didn't need much - what you see is what they looked like. Glad to hear that you approve of the background color though - what I think looks good might not be what other people think looks good. So thank you for your very helpful comment!
I think also my Nikon P900 camera has already proved itself worthy. I was seriously doubting it the first run as all my photos came back blurry, but given that I am feeling more comfortable with it and learning its personality, it definitely impressed me with this session (and the horses!). It's like a powerful telephoto lens x60. I was pretty close to them, but not that close and yes they turned out very clear. I bought it specifically for bird photography. You can also get lenses for it that will make it a 'macro' camera - perfect for those nature walks that I love so much - don't have to carry multiple camera bags and equipment.
Software I use is Photoshop.