Should I continue processing this?

[pen]

I'm having to do a fair amount of processing to get something from this. Couldn't get multiple exposures as there was always someone in the BG and this is the only time I managed to get a shot of without some one there. So is it worth working on and if so what?

First time posting an image for critique but I'm in the 3D arts so don't be shy.

UPDATED Image!

Here is the original

 

[Chris Stegner]

It looks like one thing you're done to "save" this shot is to outline parts and blur other parts behind them. When you do that, you get halos in the background around the objects you've outlined. Am I right in saying you're trying to pull parts of it out of focus?

 

[Robin Usagani]

Fake bokeh is almost never good.

 

[pen]

Yep that is one thing that I'm trying at the moment. To harsh as well I have played a bit with a sort of Orton effect so that is giving it a bit more halo as well. Instead of a blur maybe just a desaturating the BG a bit? Give up and move on??

 

[bigheadkyle2]

I agree that the halos are not looking good. One thing I do if I want to blur the background is to make an elliptical selection around the main subject then feather it and apply the blur. It's not the most technically correct but when push comes to shove and can work. Another thing I would do is to merge what you have now, duplicate it, run a high pass filter to bring out the textures, and change the blending mode to something like overlay or soft light, or whatever looks good really and drop the opacity down so it isn't overdone.

 

[pen]

Just updated the image so no halo and I removed the Orton effect as that was causing about half of it.

 

[pen]

The high pass works well and was part of the original test but isn't on the update. As for using a elliptical mask I have painted it. To stop the halo effect what I have done is use the layer mask for the top layer that is masking out the back ground to select the mower in the BG, delete it then run the blur. This stops the halo from happening. That blured BG then ha a gradient mask from front to back and is blending it with an unblured BG layer. I'm lacking nice high lights how ever and without at least a one bracket it will be hard to pull it out of what is there.

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