Since the background was a little busy and there seemed to be some Muddy looking noise, I used GIMP to isolate the butterfly from background and then ran Gaussian Blur on background. I also did a very slight USM using GIMP.
Here you can see the painted bg. There is not manipulation!!!
If you want see more other picutres about this bg I have 20 other shots with this bird and the handpainted bg!!!
It seemed that the reflections were so much more saturated than the actual trees that I tried giving just them a little boost with an adjustment layer.
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1801 W: 73 N: 3356]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-g-g.gif){kind=small}
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 226 W: 5 N: 535]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-n-g.gif){kind=small}
