thank you for all the suggestions and help! i do think looking at it now it could use a LITTLE bump up in brightness and bring out the eyes a bit but what i was trying to be very careful about (one of my pet peeves when i see some other peoples post proccessing work) is to avoid an overproccessed look and keep it as natural looking as i can.
w/ the sharpness i think it really was the export to smaller size that i did that is making the b&w appear crisper than the color...full sized the color looks a lot clearer. but thank you for pointing it out.
you know i didnt even notice the foot looking bark down in the bottom so thank you for that! after i saw it now its bothering me so thats gotta go !
i think w/ the final edit i need to bring up the exposure a bit on her and do some more tweaking on the eyes. sounds like thats the general consensus ?? thanks again for all the help!