fotoman150 wrote:
....When I convert to black and white and try different settings I just can’t make it look as good as other people’s black and white.....
From an editing point of view, B&W is not the same as colour. One implication of this point is that things you've taught yourself to avoid when editing colour can be acceptable and even desirable in B&W. For example you may have taught yourself to notice and avoid having blacks and whites that are too solid. That will be especially true of the whites, and you probably see blown whites as a big no-no. However, in B&W, strong blacks and whites are often the very things that make a photo stand out.
The same applies to other things that you are used to seeing as "over-cooking". For example, too much contrast in a colour shot very quickly starts to look like a mistake, whereas in B&W you have to go some before contrast becomes too much.
B&W is often about accentuating things like shape and texture, and when that's the case, colour would typically be a distraction that would weaken the shot. However, even in shots that don't have anything unusual where shape and texture are concerned, B&W can be used to convey a sense of drama, and it can often do that more effectively than colour shots. When that's the case it will often be the extra contrast that achieves the dramatic look.
B&W (and that light, airy look that you mention) works better in some situations than others. Where effects in general are concerned, to get them to work well you need to understand them properly and then choose situations which are appropriate for them. And if you understand them properly you'll know how to enhance them.
The next time you do B&W, try pushing contrast much further than you would normally (i.e. for a colour shot). And try the same thing for sharpening. You might find that that's what's been missing in your B&W editing in the past. And if you like your colour shots dark and moody there's a good chance that you'll like your B&W that way or even more so. Be willing to work the Whites, Highlights, Shadows, Blacks, Brightness and Contrast more than you would with colour.
Your inner critic may be causing you to be over-cautious with your editing. Try getting out of that mind-set by being deliberately more experimental. Push things far more than you would normally and be open-minded about what's acceptable and what isn't. You want to stop short of things looking like a mistake or a complete disaster, but the chances are you haven't been cutting yourself enough slack, and I can't think of a better way to discover new looks that you might like and that you may never have discovered if you'd remained too conservative.