First ever black and white

[Mr.Photo]

I have always told myself that I want to start doing some black and white photo's but just never have taken the time to do so. Today I finally broke out of my comfort zone, and converted this shot I did of my parents neighbors horse, what do you all think?

Edit: I accidentally removed the original photo I did, but subsequent edits are located further down.

 

[JacaRanda]

The brightest parts distract me, except on the beard it's really cool. Whiskers? Beard?

 

[dxqcanada]

You need to work your S curve.
Highlights are to high, and there are are no real blacks.

 

[vintagesnaps]

You got some nice detail. I'd just make copies and play around with adjusting the contrast and brightness, it seems more gray than black and white.

I find when I'm shooting B&W film I'm thinking about the light and dark in the scene, looks like you have that here if you can make some adjustments.

 

[Mr.Photo]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I just loaded the image in to Photoshop again, and tried playing around with the curves some. I think I do like this one better.

DSC_4147 B&W by Gary C's Photography, on Flickr

 

[KenC]

I agree the second is better and it's a nice B&W image overall. There are two things I think could improve: 1) bring back just a little detail in the dark areas, and 2) darken the lower right with a curves adjustment layer to knock down those out-of-focus highlights.

 

[Mr.Photo]

So I adjusted the curves slightly to bring back some detail in the dark area's, and then used the adjustment brush to knock the exposure down some in the lower right portion of the image to bring down the highlights some. I am really astounded at the amount of control you have in black and white as well as the completely different adjustments vs a color image.

DSC_4147 B&W by Gary C's Photography, on Flickr

 

[The_Traveler]

Imo, a basic problem with this picture is that the horse' 'face' is in the shadow and the brightest areas, that attract my eye, are not the center of interest.