Toy Lights Go Dark

I decided to give the Imagecraft Bootcamp low-key exercise a shot. The original color image shows a toy booth at the night market near the Buddhist temple in Katagrama, Sri Lanka. I used camera raw to make the adjustments. After converting the original to black and white, I played with the tone curve. I also decreased the intensity of several colors, especially purple (which I moved to zero) and magenta, to create more solid dark spaces. I used the adjustment tool to highlight some of the eyes and faces and the plastic balls. I still wanted to more solid black areas so on the main adjustment menu, I reduced the blacks and increased the shadows. I upped the clarity to 30. Is this what I should have aimed for?

Imagecraft Bootcamp: Low-Key Images