Facinating discussion... I'm just getting into this type of transformation.
If you can get past the
not-so-great mask job I did here, I've found that in some cases one can draw favorable attention to the subject by replacing a distracting background with a solid color.
On the right image it can work for color, too.
------------------------
re:
To get you going, some old filmsettings for the channelmixer:
Film %R %G %B
Agfa 200X 18,41,41
Agfapan 25 25,39,36
Agfapan 100 21,40,39
...etc.
FWIW I wrote a PS action awhile back to easily replicate the effects of these CM settings. Although it was a valuable learning exercise, the net was the differences among many of the setting combos was so little that it wasn't worth the time comparing them, so I went back to the "assess by eyeball" (what I liked) method.
