I have a few Japanese maple trees, and they’re all challenging, but this is awesome advice especially for the Waterfall. Trimming the sideways branches obstructing other branches will be a pretty straightforward method I think I could handle. The one that’s really confusing to me is the Twombly’s red Sentinel. It’s supposed to be columnar but most of its new growth is in the direction of the sun. So I’ve got 3 big branches at the “front” that are projecting out from closer to the base, preventing it from being a true “column”. But they’re pretty substantial branches at this point, so I don’t want to stub them but I also don’t want to loose all of their foliage coverage closer to the trunk. I haven’t really ever used yelp to be honest, but that’s a good recommendation. I guess I’d be looking for “ornamental arborists”? It’s pretty niche, but I’ll check it out. I’ve only ever hired an arborist for complete tree removal of a 30’ pine, so I don’t think I’d rely on them with these trees.