I just wanted to brighten the background a bit, so I increased the brightness and contrast, then did the clarify tool at 2.0, then used the noise reduction tool to make the background a bit more blurry. Then I used USM 25%. I wish I could get a chance to see such a lovely bird!
I wanted to brighten the foreground so I used the magic wand to select the sky, then inverted the selection, and brightened the rest. I hope you like the result.
First of all I slightly cropped the image and turned the image to the left. Then I used the mediun tool to soften the background, went into Hue-Contrast and Color Balance and changed the colors and contrast of the background, and then placed image through the waterpaper filter, and lastly placed the image through the glass filter.
I had a lot more trouble trying to brighten this than I thought I would. Increased brightness and contrast, then went to hue and increased that and lightened. Then did USM 75% Your version still looks clearer however.
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