I played with it a little bit and the view I like is leveling using the eyes-line as the level line. I then used curves 'auto' in cs6 and it brings in just a touch of dark but still leaves the higher key that you were going for.
There is a band of white behind the you lady's head that looked a little weird. Was that in the background or is that an artifact of something having been taken out?
I also added just a touch of unsharpen mask.
Using your image as the source, this is what I'm talking about. I hope you don't mind.
HI there, nope doesn't bother me when people play with my images. It is hard to compare to my image when you have to flip back and forth from one page to the other. next time, post the before and after side by side.
The band of white is just something in the background brighter than everything else. I would be curious to see yours next to mine.
