Dear OMG..., since there are so any different possibilities and choices to be made at each of the several steps that you mentioned, it would be much more useful to the OP (and credible, for that matter), if you could post a complete example of techniques that you suggest, say, in the form of an unflattened psd file. For example, I'm quite experienced at PS, but because your description is so general, even I don't know exactly what technique you had in mind when you said "make the brown stand out".
Here's a photo I took a couple of years ago in fairly similar lighting. To make it easier for you, its background is even already OOF. Feel free to use it as a starting point.
How 'bout it? Show us exactly how to "make the brown stand out" in my photo.
Tom M