3D-ness

To solve both issues in one go, the idea came up to turn the image into a 3D image (one that you look at with 3d glass).

This would make it more immersive, and also give the viewer and extra layer of interest and removed the lacking feeling.

It also meant that the colour problem became void, as to do the 3D image, it had to become greyscale, to allow for the red/blue colours to work for the 3d element.

So to make the 3D image, i created two screenshots of my image, and in the second one the foreground elements where shifted to the right a small amount (50px in trial 1, 100px in trial 2).
 
I then followed a tutorial on how to turn these into a single image that works with the 3D glasses.

http://mars3d.jpl.nasa.gov/3DImages.cfm

I found out that the further apart the original two images, the further apart the red and blue lines would be (i guess that's obvious), but then it also effects how far apart the front and back layers look in 3D. I prefered the version below, where they are further apart, as the effect is a little more dramatic.

Once it was in greyscale, i realised the gradient wasn't having a lot of effect, and was also making the bottom left corner seem a bit strange (with the greys merging into each other).

So i just toned the gradient down for the final version.