What editing techniques should I use?

[Lens Fanatic]

Feedback Needed Please!

 

[KmH]

Dodge, burn, adjust mid-tone contrast.

If you shot this as a monotone JPEG in the camera you are missing a ton of image file data that you could have used for editing.

With digital shoot A Raw file (Raw is always in color) so you have more options for adjusting the tone of colors in the image during conversion to Black & White, which is not monotone/grayscale.

 

[Lens Fanatic]

Dodge, burn, adjust mid-tone contrast.

If you shot this as a monotone JPEG in the camera you are missing a ton of image file data that you could have used for editing.

With digital shoot A Raw file (Raw is always in color) so you have more options for adjusting the tone of colors in the image during conversion to Black & White, which is not monotone/grayscale.

Sent from my SM-N950U using ThePhotoForum.com mobile app

 

[sleist]

Post the RAW file or the OOC JPEG. Can't tell based on an already edited image.

 

[KmH]

You haven't chosen an image editing preference yet for your profile.
I am posting an edit of your post #1 image I have made.
Let me know if you want it removed.

The image posted has a lot of JPEG file compression artifacts in the background making it look nervous and jittery, mainly visible MCU (Minimum Coded Unit) borders. MCUs are usually square blocks of 8x8 or 16x16 pixels.
Globally (to the entire image) added some mid-tone contrast and 0.25 EV (stop) of exposure.
I locally dodged (made lighter) and burned (made darker) parts of the image around her to draw attention to what she is looking at and reaching for.
I cropped some off the right side of the frame such that the frame is now 3 inches wide, because IMO that negative space was not adding anything constructive to the image.
I added a narrow black border to the frame.