Advanced Selections in Photoshop

I was driving around one day, looking for things to photograph for a class assignment when I drove past this magnificent tree, covered in bird houses. I immediately stopped and knocked on the door of the tree's owner and asked if I could take a few photos. They accepted and a few minutes later I had captured this image from their front doorstep.

After shooting this photo, I decided that I would desaturate the background in order to draw the focus to the tree and the bird houses. This required an advanced selection made using many different selection tools and quick masks. I ended up saving and loading the selection many times to refine it before I got it just right.

A photo of a tree with many bird houses on it.