I took this with a lens baby but had it stopped to f11, resulting in a less than optimal background, which I will put in the comments. I took the photo through several passes of gaussian and lens blur, painting in where I wanted the blur, did a little content aware fill for the really gnarly parts, added a vignette in LR with the radial filter and did a little split toning. PS is not as comfortable for me as LR but now that I (finally) understand layers, I wonder sometimes if I overdo it.
Any comments welcome.
This is the original untouched file
Kathy, it is always possible to overdo post processing, either in LR or PS. In this instance, you may have taken a crooked path to get to where you wanted to be. You seemed to lean on a "little of this " and a “little of that”, which signals moderation to me. I think you wound up with a fine image, no matter how you got there. Good work! Just a few comments: I like the original as well; and a small two pixel border would help to separate the image from the dark NPN BG.
Thanks Phil
Forgot about the borders, you are absolutely correct. And thanks on the positive enforcement on my artistic attempts. I watched a few videos about layers lately and Have been going crazy trying out things.
