front cover image process

I have taken a picture for my front cover and would like to show the changes I have made to it.

Here is the original image. As you can see it is a picture of a longboard. I took the picture from right at the end of it so that I could get a nice shot of the board. I personally really like this image because of the camera angle and because of the colours. I feel that the colours of the board contrast nicely with tire in the background. Another thing that I like about this picture is the fact that the board looks like it has been used which adds to my rugged style layout ideas. I chose to do my picture like this instead of the way I had planned it because of 3 reasons. Time, availability and personal preference. I needed to get a picture taken quickly so I took a picture of something which did not require much effort. I could not find the right time to get a picture taken on the beach and the weather was not perfect which took the availability away. I also personally did not like my original idea that much and wanted to come up with a new idea, but i could not think of anything, so i looked at some pictures online and I saw one with a different camera angle so I used that idea to tai my own picture.