Improvements On My Edits

I have edited my piece for the phobia of forests, Hylophobia. Here is the before and after from the shoot:

Below, I have the before and after showing how I have further developed my editing skills:

Using Adobe Photoshop CS4, I have played around in curves to change the colourings of the image - making it darker, less vibrant. I talk about this in the blog entry below. With regards to my editing improvements, I have used the Clone tool and the Blemish tool to remove the twig from the subject's leg - as well as remove it from the picture as a whole.
I also created a new layer where I added a Gaussian Blur to the whole image, and using the Eraser Tool (with feathered brush) I erased the centre of the image so the subject was still in focus. Personally, I do like this effect and I am happy to have used it to create a sense of motion and unease with the photograph. I feel it projects a different emotion in the viewer than the previously edited one.

Before I was completely content with my photograph, I had attempted using another blur on my image. Here it is:

Although I really liked this image to begin with, it now seems very dull compared to the one I edited using Gaussian Blur. Here I used the same technique as I had previously explained but I used Motion Blur instead. I feel this image wouldn't draw out as many emotions or reactions from the viewer of the image than the one I have shown previously. This is why I carried on editing until I was happy with my final piece.

Here is my final edit: