Contents page editing process

This is the process of how I got to the image I did on my contents page

Image one:



 This is the original photo, I picked it for the contents page as it looked good but it would also leave room for me to put in a contents and writing.
The image itself I felt needed to have all the flaws removed so that's what I did.

 This is the first edit, as you can see I removed the dirt from the stones and the sand and generally cleaned up the image to make it look cleaner and more professional.

 This is edit number two, this was going to be the photo I used. In this image I brightened up her lips and made the image brighter, but after careful consideration I decided not to use this image as I thought to myself it may be too bright for the reader but it is also very obviously edited and I had already very obviously changed the front cover photo, so I didn't want all my images to look edited and fake

So I kept the idea of the bright lips as I thought it was nice and stood out, and the reader's eyes had one point to be drawn to which is her face compared to the above photo where their eyes could have been pulled anywhere and the reader may have not looked at the photo or enjoyed looking at the photo
So I turned down the brightness to leave this photo with a more natural look about it and still have it look clean and interesting