I must say, I have been thinking the first of these images are too dark.
I don't mind the moss too much, it 'works' with this image, but the other one could definitely do with a bit of punching up.

One of the great challenges for digital photographers is to get to have their images appear good across a range of media.
Gone are the days when all pictures where printed.

Today you have to be ready to see your pictures on screen too.
The difficulty is knowing how other screens are adjusted, i.e. how bright they are and how high the contrast is set.

If you edit your images on a low contrast, low saturation screen and then view it on a high contrast, high saturation screen, you may be very surprised at the results.
I have added an article about on how to normalize your screen's output to the list of upcoming articles and I'll let you know as soon as it is done.

In the mean time, I have take the liberty of uploading a curves-adjusted version of that image above.

But remember what you said yourself, photography is about what YOU like, so if you prefer an image to be slightly brighter or darker, then that is absolutely fine too.

What I have done here, is I have attempted to leave the shadow areas as dark as they are, while brightening the highligts, thereby increasing the contrast.

Mainly, I have attempted to lighten the face while leaving the background as dark as it was before. This "lifts" the girl out of her surroundings. I used curves in photoshop, but other image editing software have equivalent ways of selectively improving contrast.

¬¨¬®¬¨¬Æ¬¨¬®¬¨?Ü‚Äö?Ñ????ë?????´‚Äö?Ñ????ë‚Äö?тĆLet me know what you think.

Thanks for you comments, I agree that they need more light, I will have to start reading a lot about image calibration, they actually look awful at work, here they look 'fine'.

I do like your fixes ed, thanks a lot for that.

Please feel free to edit my images and improve them whenever you want (that is for anyone of course) ;)

Be the change you want to see in the world
-- Mahatma Gandhi

Tell you what, I'll do a little curves tut, specially for you. That should explain the how. I'll try to get it up by the end of the week.