I don't think the original is that bad honestly, but I do install reshade in just about every game I play so I can understand. Bottom picture has too high contrast though and levels need adjusted.
It's a matter of taste. I set the contrast so that the brightest pixel in the scene is 100% white, and the darkest 100% black, so there is the highest possible dynamic range (and nothing is over or underexposed). The vanilla kind of looks like there is mist everywhere since it's so washed out.
You may prefer that contrast but I wouldn't call it "natural lighting"
I don't mean this negatively at all but it reminds me of the photo edits I would make when I first discovered that stuff looks cool if you crush the blacks a bit. That's not how stuff looks with our eyes but it does look nice
I prefer crushing the whites (a bit of overexposure) than crushing the black. It feels more realistic.
Do people have differences in how bright they see the worlds colors, I wonder? I know, of personal experience, that colors for a single person can literally look bleaker when one is depressed. And then theres people with better night vision than others.