How to Make a PERFECT BACKGROUND BLUR on Mobile with Snapseed App

Today we are gonna try getting  a perfect background blur for this highly compressed mobile photo  using Snapseed and Lightroom apps.

• After opening the image in Snapseed,
• first I am gonna use Tune Image to add  contrast and a little bit of saturation.
• Also Details to add structure.
• I am gonna save this and  revert back to the original.
• Now you need to choose which part  of the image is the foreground.
• It should be easy here as it is the  bird and the pole it is sitting on.
• So using Healing tool, gonna brush  roughly on those parts to remove them.
• Don't need to be perfect here as  they are going to be blurred anyway.
• Next using the Lens Blur tool,  choosing the linear option.
• Decreasing the transition  and scaling down the tool.
• Moving it to a corner here.
• Setting the Blur strength to 100  and vignette strength to zero.
• You can notice the corner patch which I  am gonna fix easily with the Healing tool.
• I am gonna repeat the Lens Blur  step again to get more blur.
• Now using Double Exposure,  
• I am gonna add the saved image on top  of this and set the opacity to 100.
• Going to masking screen now.
• Tapping on this stacks icon, View  edits, Double Exposure and brush.
• Here with the image hidden and brush set at 100,  
• roughly brushing on and  around the bird to reveal it.
• Setting the brush value to zero.
• Now zooming in as much as possible.
• This is important to get a precise selection.
• Brushing on the edges carefully  to reveal the image underneath
• which is basically a fully blurred image.
• Taking a lot of time here to get the  selection right as the final look is
• dependent on how well the selection is made.
• On second thoughts, I will remove this thing  underneath which is quite distracting.
• The before and after.
• Next I am gonna crop the image using Crop tool.
• Adding vignette with the Vintage filter.
• After these edits, I am gonna export this to  Lightroom app to make it look even better.
• Here in Lightroom, first in Light menu,  adding whites with a two finger swipe  
• to make the brightest spots as bright  as possible without getting clipped.
• Same with the blacks slider for the darkest parts.
• In the color menu for the HSL sliders.
• Increasing the saturation of the oranges  and the reds to make them pop more.
• Detail menu now.
• First adding sharpening a little  to enable the masking slider.
• Now dragging the masking slider with two fingers  
• to get a selection mask where  the sharpening will be applied.
• Increasing the sharpening to desired levels.
• Also radius and detail sliders  which will pop the subject further.

The final result here.