Carving Images Issue

[BSarte]

Need a little help here from some of you who are more knowledgeable than me!

So I imported a picture of my son and his wife in their Halloween costumes, looked pretty good to me, the only thing I added besides the imported image was a text for the 2020. I carved it and did not come out very well.

Are there any aspects of the imported picture that I can do to the picture before I import it like inverting?

Also there is a line at the beginning of the text (2020) that showed up? What could have caused this?

I also have an issue with the density of the wood, it is a piece of wood I got from a buddy for practice and it does not carve well, it is pine. Some of the other pine I have you can feel the difference in the density so the final carving will be ii more dense wood.

Pictures are of the pattern in CW software and the carving itself.