Yesterday when out with my camera (and bicycle) I came across this little squirrel.

Despite the low wintery afternoon light, this shot came out with the head/torso nice and in-focus, so I applied some sharpening to the shot.

But, I noticed that even though the squirrel came out fine, the background, which was "soft" due to the wider f/4 aperture creating a narrow "depth of field", had become way too grainy from the global sharpening done in Lightroom!

So, back into Lightroom. I pulled back on the global sharpening and applied a "sharpening brush" to the squirrel and then a "softening brush" to the backgroun and other out-or-focus parts.

So, here are some "takes" from the project!