Okay, I've just tried fixing the highlights, and found something really weird.
Most of the editing I've done of past photoshoots has been in the Windows "Photos" application, in which highlights and shadows (amoung other parameters) can be both increased and decreased, but I can only edit an entire image, not a select area. For brightness, contrast, and saturation, Paint Shop seems to have the same functionality (Windows Photos has "Exposure" and Paint Shop has "Brightness" but I'm assuming those are the same thing, since the latter is placed alongside Contrast); but it seems as though Highlights and Shadows can both be only increased, not decreased.
Colors->Adjust->Highlights/Midtone/Shadow brings up a box with those three parameters, each of which is a value from 0 to 100. For Highlights, 100 is "no change," and decreasing it makes things brighter. For Shadow, 0 is no change, and increasing it makes things darker. Midtone starts at 50 and can be both increased and decreased.
This is so weird to me that I feel like I MUST be missing something here. I'm assuming nobody else here actually has Paint Shop Pro 5 since it's at least 15 years old; but from my descritption, does anybody have a clue as to what might be going on here??
That said, adjusting the highlights in Photos made barely any difference to the gloves, and of course doesn't help with the hood. Regarding which -
the hot spot in her hood needs to be photo edited since it's so blown out you can't recover anything from it.
Trying to fix part of a photo that's severely blown out isn't something I've attempted to do before, and I don't really know how it's supposed to be done. I've found a combination of tools in Paint Shop that might result is something usable if I fiddled with them enough, but I suspect that that's less effecient than whatever you did, so I'll just ask - how did you do that? Thanks.

(EDIT - There's also a method in another program I've used in the past to make an unwanted object "disappear" that might work here, but I'd still like to know how you did it for learning purposes.)
Find a full shade spot where there are no sunspots on the subject.
Straight-up shade wouldn't work in this case, as for several of the shots (including this one and the one below) I wanted to use a white reflector to bounce light up form below to add a glow to the face. I guess I could made it (using either natural shade or a blocker) so that sunlight doesn't fall directly on the subject but still hits the reflector; that's just tricky.
If you have access to the model again, I'd go give it another shot!
I don't think she models anymore (she's since removed all of the modeling photos from her Instagram profile), but I'd be up for trying a similar concept again with a different model.
The original cropped photo though, causes the red in the bust area to be balanced out and doesn't make for a boudoir photo. Comparing it to the uncropped version, the bust area literally pops out because it overpowers in the amount of red in the image. Skin tones in B&W are altered with the filters vs. the B&W here which makes the skin tones and bustier part merge into a singular tone.
it lends again to overtly boudoir.
I'm unclear on which images you're saying are better than others in this paragraph; though I think I understand
why you're saying they're better. I get that you think the second image in my first post is better than the uncropped one; but you also seem to be saying that one of the B&W images is better than the other, but I can't tell which one you're saying is better ("Skin tones in B&W are altered with the filters vs. the B&W here" - I can't tell which photo is which in this sentence), or whether you think that that B&W image is better than the cropped and colored one from my first post.
Also, if you think the cropped one is better, do you think it would be even better if the aspect ratio wasn't square? Maybe 10x8? Do you think that it being square is off-putting, as weepete suggested above?
the B&W has a real problem because no red or blue filtering was used. (See old B&W filter use for specifics)
I don't know what you mean by "see old B&W filter use," unless you're just telling me to "look up how to use a B&W filter."
I'd also have really liked to see her eyes here, as there's no reason for her eyes to be closed and it may provide a much needed strong focal point.
I went through the whole set again; here's one that I think has a good connection, unedited except for cropping. (Yes, this has the same problem with the light on the hood.)
