Comment by anotheryou

Black and white images need more contrast to be pleasing. I think that's most of the effect you see here.

Maybe you'd want to start with a decent black and white photograph to get a better comparison.

No matter what you do you probably also don't want to end up with large patches of solid white or black in your source image (unless it's the background). The hair already feels like drowning in black. But to take care of that you need to use photoshop and be careful with the gradient curves :)