How can I make this pic pop

Mainly the eyes, I know it is B&W but I have seen other B&W's that look beautiful and so vibrant, especially the eyes. Any suggestions.

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HEre is my go at it. I dodged and burned the eyes. Softened the skin a little and tried to darken the background a little but that didnt work out too great.
Hope you like it.

Cute shot. I cleaned up some of the food crumbs as well.

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It's easier to do a good black and white conversion from a color photo, but...

A couple curves layers, and I dodged the eyes some, and a little sharpening. Just needs contrast really.

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Maureen Souza wrote in post #5909742
Cute shot. I cleaned up some of the food crumbs as well.

What were the steps you took to PP? I love it!

I do as well.Maureen.lovely edit.

Thanks. I went into the exposure mode and adjusted the gamma slider to the right to about 88. Then I went into levels and adjusted the top slider until I was happy. Topped it off with a skin smoother called Kodak Digital Gem Pro. Oh, and I brushed out the crumbs and splotches on the chin.

In my opinion, the original picture had serious lighting handicaps before it even came out of the camera.

Why shoot into a bad lighting situation and hope to save the image? The sun is clearly coming down from directly above and behind on the shoulders and cheekbones and top of the ear and is also just blasting the background.

My advice would be to find some open shade with an attractive background and try again - either earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon.

As technically correct as what you're saying is, I think the background is forgivable considering the frame is full enough of a human subject to make me not care about the background. The image isn't trying to be a great image across the board, it's just trying to capture the single subject.

Having said that, a better background wouldn't detract from the image at all, and blown highlights are something you would generally want to avoid. It's a little hard to tell exactly how the light was, but it looks like underexposing (to get the background properly exposed) and using fill flash would have been able to do the job of the whole scene being properly exposed.

It was just a quick snapshot taken of a friends daughter at a splash park. She loved the original picture but I was trying to PP it a bit for her. Thanks for all the help and C/C.

I personally think that Griptapes version is excellent, it's not portrait quality (since the photo didn't have it) but has a genuine feel ...I like the little dodge and burn type of affect.

In my opinion, the original post was superior to all three "improvements" - which raised the contrast even further, and that is certainly not what was needed.

Robert_Lay wrote in post #5917559
In my opinion, the original post was superior to all three "improvements" - which raised the contrast even further, and that is certainly not what was needed.

I agree with Bob.

Focus on the eyes. The original locked focus on the ear and hair on the back of the head.

I think the original is suffering from "scary monster eyes" so I did what I could to recover some eye detail using shadows/highlights and some localised curves adjustments, then rebalanced the tonal range of the image (avoiding a harsh contrasty look which is not flattering for kids imo) then finished off with a little sharpening and some very slight warming.

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