Help with achieving more overall-lit forest env.

Hi there!

I’m working on a Biome exterior scene and have been having a bit of struggle with getting the light to look overall more flat / evenly lit.

Now to start, this is my first time baking lighting for an exterior scene so the constant tweaking of lights + super long bake times, is not ideal. So i’m hoping some one a bit more experienced can help with some general tips and tricks with achieving such idea.

As you can see the contrast is very extreme.

Here is a quick reference that I found online which is a bit closer to what I want to achieve

As you can see the darks are not nearly as dark as mine, you can actually see the terrain floor.

I have obviously tried the simple things like just increasing direct light, but obviously that just blows out the highlights. I also tuned down the shadows within my Post Processing Volume, but even that isnt giving me a good result.

Is it my canopy coverage? I will share any other details that may be helpful.

Thank you all in advanced!