Territorial Squirrel

[lrivetz]

1/80 s at f/4.0, ISO 64
36.9 mm

Too busy?
I tried adjustment layer > levels
I tried darkening, screen, and soft light for the duplicate layer all so that the background would be blurry and for the squirrel to pop out but none seems to work. The color of the squirrel seems to look like it is has too much contrast but that is the color of the squirrel.

[rw123]

Hi Irivetz--
The adjustment layer levels should have worked for you-- Try this---Go to Layer, new adjustment layer and move the sliders left and right to exposure the squirrel maybe a little over exposed then press "OK". Now press the "d" key and then "control and backspace (at the same time)", now press the "B". This will bring the brush tool--adjust its size to allow to you paint over the squirrel--(Note: don't worry if the squirrel doesn't look quite right at the moment). Once the squirrel is painted --move the opacity slider to get the exposure you like. Then you can merge the visible layers if you like.

Blurring background--grab your quick selection tool and select the squirrel then press inverse ( this selects the background). Now in the filter menu select "blur" then "Gaussian blur" and adjust blur as you like. Then press "deselect".

The steps in your PP program maybe a little different but in general the above steps are the basics for what you want to do.

[MSidPhoto]

hmm.....nothing very amusing......the squirrel is pretty much out of focus, the background needs more contrast and sharpness..

[lrivetz]

This photo is not meant to be amusing. I wanted to show that even a squirrel wants its space. This copy is out of focus because I had to compress it several times, so it would be in compliance image posting.

Revised
http://a4.vox.com/6a0123f16ce37a860f0123ddddd1b4860d-pi

Even blurring the background, it is still too busy especially the tiny branch that crosses over the squirrel’s body. I will have to re-shoot.