How to achieve this look?

[maris0]

Hello, I'm rather frustrated as I've been trying all kinds of things with Photoshop and can't quite seem to get this sort of effect for my pictures...

Untitled | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Untitled | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


Any ideas or good tutorials would be appreciated

[dlambert]

Both of these look like they're slightly overexposed, with low saturation and possibly softened a bit. What are you doing for your adjustments?

[autofocus]

first one looks like a warm toned black and white, but there is some color in it, maybe brought back with a low opacity history brush
second one looks like a boost in midtone levels...maybe a screen layer