Parallel vs Serial

...my computer codes that is.

I have spent the whole day comparing different outputs of my codes both in parallel and in serial. It is supposed to be expected that the parallel version would significantly cut off the computation time of my jobs but that wasnt the case in ALL of my results. I have consulted google and have read some articles telling me that the amount of my computations could probably not compensate for the amount of overhead creating and merging threads at the end of the parallel region. I am just halfway through my code and i am not sure if i want to continue with coding in parallel since i cant be sure if it will be beneficial in the long run. I will have to spend the next few days deciding on this dilemma.

Photo above is a macro shot of the 1GBP coin. Used my 50mm but reversed it to emulate a macro lens (i.e. front element of lens is placed on the mount of the camera)