skin tones from rest of pic

[SAEngraver]

Hi all,
I do photoengraving onto pure black porcelain and granite. I am often send photos to do of people who have passed away and there is then no recent pic available so I land up trying to create a reasonable reproduction possibility from these.
One of my major problems is my personal lack of in depth knowledge of PSP.
Attached is a photo which needs individual attention to skin tones (face etc.) and yet different treatment to the cloth.
The cloth would engrave in pure white so I seek to darken these without touching the face. I would possibly even like to add some form of texture to these cloth.
The face I'll use the local tone mapping feature to bring out the contrasts. and than take it to curves to obtain the lightness I require.
Any help - possibly by way of a work schedule in the form of 1Do this - 2 Do this etc., to facilitate my little mind coping with the procedure would be greatly appreciated.
I append the original hereto, which arrived here as a 72dpi - I work ideally with 300 dpi which was easily remedied.
The head and shoulder will be cut out from the background which must be pure black, see web site.
She will than be converted to black and white - this is where the tone adjustments starts to create optimum contrasts without using sharpening tools as these create much noise and pixation (pixilation?)
It has not allowed me to upload the b&w rendering.
I will follow this up with a B&W I have done but am not satisfied with - this post does not allow another pic attachment so it will be contained in the following one.
My web site to show some of the work I do is http://www.granitephotoengravers.com
I await your kind assistance.
Thank you kindly
SAEngraver

[SAEngraver]

the B7W rendering I spoke of in my previous post.

[Jean-Luc]

Very interesting !
It would be helpfull for us you show a correct or excellent rendering you have done with some pictures (in more than one message, no problem).
1. Original picture
2. the treatment you done in PSP (the target to achieve)
3. A photo of the result on stone or other support so we can see the complete process.

As we don't know where are the limits of the material, the engraving machine, etc., it is difficult to give a workprocess.
You could also post some results you get with PSP which were not good (examples of what should be avoided) so we are not going is a wrong direction when we make suggestions.
Why are you not satisfied with the B&W you attached ? Where are the defects?