Very subtle changes in the first, its hard to comment, for me anyway, I looked on two different monitors and on one monitor thought the 'before' was better than later on lookign on another monitor thought the 'after' was better
That said, I think teh 'before' on the first one...
In the second, as greg mentioned I think selectice PP is the key here, the overall exposure is better on the 'before' however you need some local PP to get some more light on the face. Once all that is done I think you need to make it more contrasty, it loooks a little too grey scale rather than black and white in my opinion.
maybe a bit like this?
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