My wonderful wife bought me the Nik Complete Collection for Lightroom for my birthday last month. I decided to use Silver Efex Pro to re-process a particular photo that I though was lacking a bit in emotional impact. The photo, called Forgotten, shows a stuffed toy rabbit that someone left on a child's grave. The toy had subsequently been knocked/blown over and rained on. In larger versions of the photo you can see dirt, grass clippings, and other traces of exposure trapped in the rabbit's fur. I originally used Photoshop's Black and White adjustment layer with a sepia tint. My intent with the sepia was to convey the passage of time but I think it ended up being too "warm and fuzzy."

I thought the image needed more bite to convey the real sadness of the scene, so I used Silver Efex to make a rougher, more contrasty rendering and gave it a very subtle cool tint. I had to use a Lightroom gradient adjustment to bring back a little of the background detail so the image wouldn't lose its sense of place.

I'm curious to get feedback on this new version. Better? Worse? Why? Any suggestions for additional improvements?