How do I deal with busy background using Lightroom?

[terrib]

Took these two photos of a Greater Roadrunner at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge near Sherman, TX. I am pretty pleased with the focus on the bird (except the bill in the 2nd is outside DOF a bit) and they are the sharpest pics of a Roadrunner I have to date. But I'm what suggestions everyone has to deal with the busy background, specifically using Lightroom as I'm trying to learn that software right now. I have already used a brush to darken the upper area behind the bird.

Any other comments are also welcome. Thanks!

[Bobobird]

Both are good shots considering the conditions. Sometimes it is just impossible to isolate the background at time of the shoot. Monkeying around with pp does not necessarily make them better either (sometimes).

#2 has a clean foreground so it should be pretty easy just isolating the bird and the foreground third and blurring the remainder a tad. I would remove that bit of blue/white thing that is on the mid right.

[nimitzbenedicto]

Hi Terri,

Maybe crop closer and blur the background more.

HTH

[Geoff F]

Yes, that was my first thoughts. Cropping tighter at the top, and available side, will instantly remove most of the problem.

[pnodrog]

If you have darkened the background using lightrooms adjustment brush you can go back and also reduce contrast, clarity, saturation, sharpness etc if you have not already done so.

[terrib]

Thank you all for the suggestions. Here are edits. I think they are improved. What do you think? Cropped, reduced contrast, clarity & sharpness on upper part of background and worked on bringing up/down exposure on the bird to even out the harsh light. Oh, and also cloned out the blue thing Bobo pointed out in the darker photo.

[Geoff F]

Much better.

[Aforns]

Hi Terri You did well with the capture and post processing !! LR is limited as far as doing much locally, need to go to PS. For the bg you could make a layer and blur some of the bg. Would only go as far as a fast lens would do, more will look unnatural.

I'm not bother with the bg, the bird is in his/her environment. Difficult to find them in an open area !!

[pnodrog]

Yes a big improvement. Alfred indicates you need to go to PS but I think you have done very well with lightroom. I use both LR and PS and for the more complicated adjustments going to PS and using layers and masks etc is still my preferred method as I find it quicker but that is partly because I had been doing it that way long before LR provided an alternative method.

[kdoc856]

Really nice job, Terri. You have both given your subject some isolation from the background, and at the same time preserved the sharpness on the foreground grass to very nicely mimick the effect of lense-generated DoF. As Alfred said, that's probably a job more easily done in Photoshop, but you handled it excellently with LR with virtually no editing "fingerprint". Hat's off!