Photo manipulation (B&W)

A macro of my daughter's face was recently entered in our local fair.

This was the image entered:

Would you think this was the original?


Here is what it looked like when I converted it to B&W with Picasa2:
Not a whole lot of difference between the shades of gray.

Here is where I took that image and darkened the shadows with Picasa2:
It only gives a little more definition between the shades.

I took the original B&W and just used the adjust exposure with Windows Photo Gallery:
If you notice since it only offers a bar that moves from dark to light that when it was darkened you lose the highlights.

I then took the original B&W, darkened the dark tones, lightened the light tones, and left the medium tones alone with PhotoImpression. Now I could not resist while I had it up in that program to smooth out the food blotches on her face. Her face still glows, there is a nice contrast of the shades, and the food is gone.