Hi and thanks...

Ai yo.... quite difficult to explain and please remember that I'm still a newbie learning to improve but i try my best to explain:
I use a few software to achieve what I want from the shot taken and my objective is to have a "grunchy" type of feel which is something like HDR but is not HDR at all.
01) Some of the shots that I will post more later will be converted to B&W either using straight CS5 or silver Efex Pro first.
02) Then I will look into dark contrast for the mood using mostly silver efex pro with different color filters too.
03) After that, I will isolate the subject using firstly vignetting or vignetting blur until I am satisfied.
04) I will go on to use two most important effects which are #1 - darken and lighten and #2 tonal contrast.
05) In darken and lighten, it is something light vignetting but the lighten effect is to increase some luminosity to focus more on the subject.
06) Tonal contrast is the last and most important part. Since my intention is dark contrast and "grunchy", it is very difficult to see the details so this tonal contrast is so important to bring out the details.
07) In this tonal contrast, I will adjust the highlight contrast, mid tone contrast, shadow contrast and the saturation. This is something like tonemapping but is different. The amazing part of this tonal contrast is that you do not need to sharpen after doing this. The most is 5% to 8% shaperning if necessary.
08) Sometimes a bit of dodge and burn on highlight, shadow and exposure.. until satisfied.
I have tried this tonal contrast setting for quite a long time and is so important to me to bring out the details like the skin textures and so on. I don't think the camera can bring out so much details even with a good lens. I am still learning all this and I will know what i want by the time I start to shoot film or B&W later. B&W is more difficult than color. To me...
Oh, tonal contrast is from Color Efex Pro.
Hope this helps...