Black and White without the messy conversion

[cliffhanger407]

A bit of background on this shot. It was taken at the Jüdisches Museum's Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Germany. The room is just concrete walls with the small opening that's the bright point in the photo. It's a full color photo which may be a bit hard to tell from the fact that there's not much color in it ;). Anyway enough of me talking, here's the shot.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/cliffhanger407/SGUxiNcC0TI/AAAAAAAABvU/1vDW42tqDv0/IMG_2246.jpg?imgmax=512 (http://lh4.ggpht.com/cliffhanger407/SGUxiNcC0TI/AAAAAAAABvU/1vDW42tqDv0/IMG_2246.jpg)

Here's another shot that I'm pleased with; I did the BW conversion on this one pretty hastily (mainly because I'm not entirely sure how to do a good BW conversion despite reading tutorials) but I still like how it turned out. The point of the building this was shot in (Neue Wache) was to honor victims of tyrrany and the negative space has a profound effect in person. I hope I did it some justice. Any advice on how to do the conversion better?
http://lh6.ggpht.com/cliffhanger407/SGZF3Lt3HMI/AAAAAAAABv4/DrxdcXaXtyY/pieta.jpg?imgmax=800 (http://lh6.ggpht.com/cliffhanger407/SGZF3Lt3HMI/AAAAAAAABv4/DrxdcXaXtyY/pieta.jpg)
(The original photo is here (http://picasaweb.google.com/cliffhanger407/BerlinDay2/photo#5215873815098963554))

[rabidcow]

TLR (http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/TLRB&WConversion.htm) has some of the best free B&W conversion actions around. There are plenty to choose from to get the desired effect.

[cliffhanger407]

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely have to look into it. I've been using GIMP to adjust curves, but all the tutorials for manual BW conversion are (understandably) written for PS.

[chauncey]

I am not familiar with GIMP and do not know what it can do, but...

You do not have enough tonal range in your 2nd image, it doesn't occupy much of your histogram
and ideally,you want it to cover the whole thing.

Try using a combo of levels and contrast to "stretch" it out.

Also if you enable "image editing" in your information, it would allow us to give specific examples by altering your image.

[cliffhanger407]

I've enabled image editing, would love to see the edits that other people come up with. I'm still a noob here so advice is very appreciated!

[chauncey]

Just a quicky mind you and the differences are subtle.
As I look back maybe a little dodge brush on the idol to bring out some detail.
And should have taken care of the distortion at top.
.

[cliffhanger407]

Ok, I did a quick re-edit to see how it came out and took what you said in mind; I dodged the statue and tried to make the range better. Also got close to fixing the distortion. Am I going in the right direction? Thanks for your advice and help!
http://lh4.ggpht.com/cliffhanger407/SGd89aPj8UI/AAAAAAAABwY/E1-dl9KBNZg/background.jpg?imgmax=800