You’re right that we are spoiled for choice with environmental mods! Besides improving lighting in general, they can offer different water types to suit individual worlds, add chances for auroras, larger sun/moon options or different sunrise/sunset times, so you can enjoy a wide variety of lighting options no matter which you choose. It really comes down to aesthetics/personal preference, but it can be fun to experiment!
I personally started with BrntWaffles and went from there. Of them all, I think I use various flavors of BW’s Fresh Cut Day 3.0 the most, although I do use others to enhance the vibe and harmonize with individual worlds. I usually combine one of BW’s lighting mods with other environmental mods that change the default clouds and other features, like Nilxis’
Realistic Clouds and some of Wasset’s
Enchanted Environment mods for things like the the enchanted moon and stars, better snow and rainbows, etc. Some examples:
BW’s Fresh Cut Day 3.0:
BW’s Dream Dimension 2.5:
BW’s Dystopian Lighting:
Nilxis’
Uranesian Weather also looks pretty cool.
I will occasionally use dDefinder’s Outdoor Lighting Tweaks instead (even though I prefer BW’s lighting mods, most of which also include these tweaks) paired with the cloud and other environmental mods listed above if I intend to travel to other worlds often in a save. The reason for this is mostly due to the different water options in some lighting mods which override the water in all worlds. For example, if you’re playing a world with a lighting mod that uses Bridgeport water and then travel to Isla Paradiso, it naturally looks strange with the dark water as well as the mismatch between that and the tropical water terrain paint used along the shorelines. Because I love the extra options in BW’s lighting, I will usually save as and quit just before and after traveling and swap out one of the lighting mods for another with a more suitable water type. But if you don’t want to fiddle with changes like this, dDefinder’s mod is a great way to improve the lighting, shadows and weather without altering the water.
I also found a thread you might find helpful where other simmers have shared what lighting mods they use with screenshots, as well as some good comparison pix that might help you decide where to begin:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/912853/show-me-your-lighting-mods/p1