I liked it before you blurred it. this way looks too obviously photoshopped. I know I'm not really the one who should talk, but I do have an idea or two that may help. your main problem here is that you went too far with the blurring. it would be legal if you blurred the foreground & the background, or you could even break the guidelines and blur around the shoe, but not this close. you don't have to outline the object and blur eveything else uniformaly. It usually just looks like you outlined it and blurred it which is what you did, which isn't what you want your viewer to see. try and make it more subtle or at least let us see some of the mud that the shoe is sitting on. Otherwise it looks too pasted on and phoney. I really liked what you had going with this photo when I saw it at your house, I just think you went in the wrong direction with it. sorry if I crushed your creation, It's just my opinion, and you may have a very good reason why you did what you did to this photo. I'd be happy to show you, some ideas for it if you would like

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Scott Moore

Don't just convert to grayscale. Use the tools that father Adobe gave you hunny.