in lightroom, what is the best way to blur the background

I have a pic of a sailboat on the water and would love to blur the background but I find if I use the adjustment brush, set sharpness at 0, it works ok, but it's very time consuming and if I blur something I'm not supposed to, I don't know how to de-blur it. I tried "erase" but nothing is happening. Any help would be great.

I'm using Lightroom 5.

There's a toggle to turn on/off making the adjustment brush mask visible.

I usually use the adjustment brush and add negative Clarity to the spots I want to blur. It is difficult to get significant additional blur in Lightroom.

anitaw2 wrote in post #18435124
in lightroom, what is the best way to blur the background

http://www.photocitize​n.com …m-3-edit-in-photoshop.jpg

Lightroom really isn't for this kind of thing. If you need it done well, it has to be Photoshop or Elements.

Actually lightroom is not a good choice for such kind of editing but if you want to that on Lightroom then you can try this process:
1. Using the adjustment brush, paint around the subject
2. Then reduce the sharpness and clarity sliders.
3. Duplicate the adjustment pin several times until it looks blurry.

thanks for all the info. I'll play with it tonight