Dark or light

[Equilibrium8]

Hi. I did my first TFCD (TFDL?) session with a model on Sunday. All the photos from one location where she really wants at least one shot from, came out pretty bad. It was right at the beginning while I was still trying to sort my settings out. So, I am trying to salvage the best of the lot, which is this one.

Forum rules only allow 2 photos, so I can't put the original up here too(but in the flickr set). But I am interested to know what you think of these two variations.
One I just edited the shadow and exposure of the RAW file. The other one is the same file, but since I was losing the detail on the white shirt, I added a layer of the original, brightened it up a bit and used the eraser tool to let it show through the darker one. Not sure if its a bit overdone, or if the dark one is just too dark to begin with.

It was approaching sunset on an overcast day, and this was in the shade.
EOS 450D with kit 18-55 lens
Exp 1/25
F-stop 5.0
AP mode
ISO 800
Aperture 4.6
Focal length 41mm

Lighter version


Darker

[Penary]

I like the darker version 2nd photo, more attention is put on the model, and she’s not competing with the background.

[marline]

I agree the second one is the best

[curelightwounds]

I'd go for the first. The second looks a little underexposed.

[Equilibrium8]

Thanks for the feedback!
I also prefer the second one, but not happy about the hair blending into the background.

[sjakes]

I like the 2nd better, I think I actually caught myself squinting at the first one? Why I'm not sure? LOL