I've found that the planner generally does a good job with single-table restrictions. With joins, not so much. Sometimes simply turning a join of multiple table

I've found that the planner generally does a good job with single-table restrictions. With joins, not so much. Sometimes simply turning a join of multiple tables into a CTE has forced the planner to be more efficient. Sometimes, counterintuitive, doing the join in the application is faster. And yes, before resorting to any of those, I've spent time doing EXPLAINs and making sure I have the right indexes.