A Challenge!

Took this photo in the winter, I know he is a tad OOF but what is really killing this shot is the BG. I love his expression. Any ideas for the BG? Tried moving him onto a different BG but it looked like I had picked him up and moved him.

Step by step would REALLY be appreciated!

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …thwoods_photo/7​816510446/

What don't you like about the BG? I don't find it to be distracting or cluttered. It looks like what the BG of a photo of a squirrel should look like to me. Although, the other natural setting for a squirrel might be more of what you're looking for?

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Love it

It's far easier to alter the colors in LR by usings the HSL sliders.

Bill, what specifically don't you like about the background? It looks natural to me, you could play a bit with cloning out the rock sticking out from the back if you really wanted to mess with it...

Background looks fine to me. Just sharpen him up.

Bill, The problem with the bg is that it is too close to the squirrel. Its not in sharp focus and its not completely out of focus. This tends to pull the eye from the subject to the bg (distracting). The best way to correct this would have been to get a lower angle to create more distance between subject and bg. Since shots like this are fairly easy to get, why not try again from a lower angle. The PS work involved to save this photo isn't worth the effort, IMO.

I think Jim pretty well described what I was feeling. My eye was being pulled all over the place. I may play with trying to sharpen it, otherwise I will have to try to reshoot. The reason for the high angle is this guy was actually literally running around at my feet as I was shooting.

A squirrel is rarely an object d'art. Having said that, if he's that tame, lure him into a shoe/boot with some seeds and get some shots of him with his head/rear poking out.

Yeah, I know. Just his e/press ion in this shot. Looks like a character right out of a children's book.

How's this?

I made a layer mask of the background and filled it with a gradation to use as a map for the lens blur filter.

Yeah, I don't see the background as particularly distracting. I know you're already aware of it, but the out of focus face of the squirrel is what's really wrong with this photo, and you're probably not going to be able to fix that very well in Photoshop. The expression is cute, but honestly not anything I haven't seen with a squirrel a hundred times before. I guarantee that with a little patience you'll be able to find a squirrel in almost the exact same pose if you go out looking for the shot again. And Jim's spot on with trying to get a lower angle to improve your shot. Also, if you're not already, you'll definitely want to use a single focus point right on the squirrel's eye(s).

Looks like a chipmunk not a squirrel.