black and white with camera raw

I Tried the b&w conversion via camera raw...suggestions needed

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/lucasano/601163​6025/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/lucasano/601163​6227/

Both seem to be underexposed and low in contrast...Not sure what you were going for here, but I think you need to try again.

De-saturating a photo is not the same as converting to B&W. As mentioned above, Underexposed and low contrast. For better results, use "Convert to Gray Scale" in Camera Raw and play with the sliders.

A quick edit of the jpeg:

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Erik is on the right path with this. The only issue with this method is you end up with little midrange contrast.

Sometimes desaturating colors works. But often enough, it doesn't work. So you have a couple of options. You can still do the desaturate and apply color filters to them to manage contrast. Or what I like to use is the mid-range contrast adjustments in aperture. Plus there are a ton of third party B?W plugins that work wonders at keeping the full tonal range in conversions.

If B&W result is all you want, is there any difference in achievable end result if shooting B&W in the camera (Monchrome picture Style for Canon), rather than shooting color in camera and converting to B&W in PP?

Found some answers to my questions already posted on POTN at

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=933874

The consensus seem to be that converting to B&W in PP is preferred, as you have more control.

thanks everybody, sorry for this late answer, I was away from home for a few days.
Alle the shots were taken in full sunlight in summer in southern France, so it was hard to expose correctly for both the subject and the sky. I preffered to underexpose the shots and then tried b&w conversion to reduce the effect of strong sunlight a bit more. I'm only a beginner, so every comment is more than welcome