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Listening to @rachelswirsky talk about using details and images in fiction and jotting down notes in my notebook. Some highlights from them so far:
Description communicates something other than "the entirety of the thing that is here." It's a matter of the telling detail that gives you a *sense* of what is there.
Sometimes the telling detail isn't even really there. "The Vogon ship hung in the air exactly the way a brick doesn't." from Terry Pratchett's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sets up tone so beautifully.
Telling details often involve points of contrast, because the meaning rests in the space between them, which lets the reader fill some stuff in for themselves. Too many details feels claustrophobic, cramps the reader.
"Long passages of description must be beautiful, fascinating, or funny." There has to be something that keeps pulling the reader along.
Significant details in fiction interlock; they push/pull at each other in different ways. They do things in the service of the character, such as inform about their state of mind.
Your description also is one of the basic mechanisms for controlling the pacing. Description slows stuff down; keep this tendency in mind when selecting details. That's one reason less is more when thinking about details. The one perfect detail rather a bunch of adjectives.
