Soft Focus Dreamy Effect

[Hards80]

hi guys,

i took some pictures of my graduating class recently, and these are two of my friends. i wanted to include a lil bonus picture for them that was something a little different. so i duplicated a layer, set the opacity to 75, gradient blur to 5.0 and then converted this layer to B&W. i thought it gave the photo a nice dreamy desaturated look. what do you guys think?? any suggestions to make it better or comments are welcome..

[Hards80]

i also tried this... total desaturation of background.. increased saturation of the subjects.. still with soft focus.. whaddya think?..

just a note.. the saturation of the original is much more noticable than the post for whatever reasons...