Drafting and Planning: More Photo editing

Through photoshop, I've experimented with different ways I could edit the photos to either emphasise the cover star or to give the overall picture more drama and variety. 

From the original:

With this image I used a 'sepia' type background for the leaves to emphasise the cover star and the single red leaf and how that harmonizes with the magazine house style. I achieved this effect on photoshop by selecing 'image' on the top left, then 'adjustments' then using 'variations'.

I like the way the brown gives it an old photograph sort of effect, along with the vibrant colour of the cover star. The cover star's hair is also almost blending into the leafy ground, so it gives an idea of herself and nature combining or can hint at the album title perhaps relating to nature or how she's connected to the world. The old look with the modern can also link to the idea of the cover star being a 60's rock'n'roll artist with a modern twist.
But despite this, I do love the original, because the vibrant, warm, autumnal colours gives the idea of some sort of magical forest, relating to the artist's vivid imagination.

From this original photo:

I edited it in a few ways:

I found this effect interesting; I used 'curves' to make the original photo more vibrant, and made another layer with just the leaves, making them black and white. I used the smudge tool and smudged the black and white leaves out the way to expose more colour. This can give the photo a strange, dreamy mood but can also show that the cover star wants to use her music to brighten the boredom of life and to express the joys of her heart.

Here I went a little crazy with the editing; I know her face is pretty bright but I like the whiteness of her face relating with the white leaves and the contrast between the light and dark. Her most important features stand out the most here, her eyes and lips, relating to her name 'Little Red'n'Blue' Keeping in mind I wont use these for the large official photos, but perhaps I'd overlap the original with an edited looking one-I could apply these little or large changes within the magazine in many ways.