Colour or (toned) monochrome?

[talleyfamilyphotography]

The thing that was bugging me about all the other efforts was that with the background saturation down to nothing (black), the shadow on the left side of the foreground figure's head blended in with the background so that there wasn't a definite line between them.

Here's my attempt, desaturating the background but leaving some lightness to it so that the figures still stand out and don't get lost into the background.

[ernst]

Thanks talleyfamilyphotography,

You are right, a lighter background is even better.
I just left the dark background from the monochrome conversion when demasking the original colours. I think I was too occupied with the statues to notice the schadows.

Thanks for teaching me not to be satisfied too early!