Messing About

This began as a fairly plain photo of a leafless (dead?) tree in the desert surrounded by a few different types of cholla cactus.  I'm still messing with layers and effects so this was one of a couple I did today.   I know a lot of this stuff is old hand for a lot of blippers and maybe not so much for others.  I'm obviously in the latter group.  My first experiment was to just place filters on top of one another.  For my second attempt, I finally used layers, but just one to see if I could do it.

Today, I used four layers, messed with opacity and a couple of effects.  I did two different versions.  I put the second as the extra.  I would like your honest opinion as to which you prefer.  Think of it like this:  If you were given an assignment to show what you could do with simple layers after one class session, which would you choose to share with the class?