Better of two

Malva alcea

Malva alcea

Here are two photographs, of which I slightly prefer the second one except for that bit of black dirt on the stem of the flower. Which would have been easy to get rid of...

Anyway, does the dirt disturb you? Or do you prefer the first one for some other reason?

And this brings up the topic of cleaning up the subject of a photograph. I don't do it, except sometimes bending some branches or grass to get a better view to the subject. So, what do you thing of using scissors and tweezers to get the photograph you want?