Chris,
In the original picture I took, the sides were bright and busy, making icons a chore to locate, so the panels darkened it and made it easier to find stuff on the desktop.
Very nice edit, what a cool sign! Was it grown into the tree or what? How cool. I don't think I would have done the borders that way; I understand your reasoning and agree with that, but I'd say the plastic-wrap crimson blood effect is mroe distracting than the original. It looks like there were green palm trees there before? THey would stand out less than the red, since that's an opposite color. Very fun image tho!