Removing elements in the picutre and changing color settings. Should I also crop it?

[jgomez65]

As you can notice I removed several elements from the photo, including the children, the houses and some of the sea weeds.

I used Light Room to make two versions of the photo with different presets.I would like your opninion on which one came out better, so I can select that one for her album.

The main question, however, is wether I should also crop the picture to remove even more elements from the background as sometimes I think they are a little distracting (mainly the two pine trees in the background)

Feel free to provide any other feedback to help me improve the pictures.

Original photo out of the camera



First version:



Second version:

[laurel2sg]

Well, I think you did a good job. the people in the background are distracting and should be removed. I like the second more.

[zona5101]

Nice PP work. I like the treatment on the last one but I am not real keen on the pose nor the dead center composition.