Before and After

First, I just do this for fun. I envy those who travel to exotic lands for the shoot but I have to make do with our local drive through "Wildlife Safari". This shot my Grandson took with a 1/2.3 sensor "bridge" camera. If you look close, you can still see remnants of the chain link fence we were shooting through, in both copies. I just did a little dodge and burn in photoshop to try and hide it. I know the background blur is pretty bad but, oh well. Any CC is welcome, or if you want to practice, be my guest.

Might as well add another. He was ten years old, again using the "bridge". Another before and after.

My 2 pixels worth:

Here I did just a quick content aware-fill on the mesh. It could use a little more tidying up but it has removed most of themesh.

Unless making a point, I try not to mess with other folks' shots. Analysis on the other can be quite interesting.

Laplace edge detection (GIMP tool) emphasized with Levels.

Shows very good DOF and fine capture detail!

FWIW, I prefer the op's cleaned up version of his first picture to the other attempts above, but dont care for the black background of the second one.

David

Good to see your post! It's always ironic how you never miss a shot, or never post a shot that you missed.

I like your clean-ups, and the others.