mrbrkly, I am not trying to criticize your images, but I do have a piece of advice. I grabbed your image of this merc and did nothing more than an "auto color" on it. I assume it's in a flip, and the flip is white. Does the image on the right look more like it does in hand? Just a suggestion...
Every decent imaging software has a filter or button somewhere called "auto color". This is very handy to use when imaging coins. However, I do not suggest it on toned coins as it sometimes interprets colors incorrectly. Instead I would adjust the contrast and brightness. That's it. I simply select the image, and hit 'auto color'. boom, done! I have some mercs! I am waiting for a group of 5 more that hopefully arrived today.
eh - there are hundreds more but I think I'm done for now. That dime was the nicest FB Merc I'd ever seen. It was another stolen coin. It was a work of art and I never looked at it enough.