Achieving this look

B&W processing is interesting. I have used the Nik filters, they are quite good. Here are other ways I have tried over the years before acquiring Nik tools.

Top left = original color
Top right = Levels (bring the ends in a just a bit, slide the middle to the right a bit, USM for sharpening, USM for contrast)
Bottom left = simply desaturating to create the B&W
Bottom right = Photoshop's black and white tool and moved different colors around to get the color I wanted, then USM sharpening

I use Nik now, much better looking and more configurations.

That's a great experiment.

Her skin has a sort of matte look in the simple desat picture.

saea501 wrote in post #18495251
That's a great experiment.

Her skin has a sort of matte look in the simple desat picture.

You can use the desaturate option, but you have to follow up with some dup layers, and lighten/overlay with some leveling and USM for contrast. Chet did say that there would be post processing beyond just desaturation. Just desaturating is the worst option, there has to be more followup work to use it.

I really do like this version (left side) after the work, but the Nik tools get you here much faster.

I once did a fairly long post regarding this, but I think just the four example images will tell the story.

It would have been better if I had something with the blue and the red at the exact same level, but it's a real world image, and is close enough.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/gewF​cz

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/gews​Fb

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/gewu​v4

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/geww​Gs