Honest CC please

Isn't this overdone? Especially on the skin?

Looking at the small image, I don't think so. A test print will give you better info.

thank you.

The skin looks fine to me. You've cleaned it up a little, but still left texture. I'd probably tone down the iris treatment a little, but that's just my personal preference.
It's a nice portrait.

I think the clean up was nicely done, for sure print will be best judgement on texture for skin. As far as the iris go they are glowing a little to white, I know the intention of drawing viewers to the eyes of the portrait but don't want to overdue it to make it look unnatural. I think the sharpness will take care of that. Overall nicely shot and if you want to be crazy ocd with your editing you can clean up the frizzy hairs on the top of her head.

Looks ok to me apart from the eyes look to over sharpened to me, skin looks ok at that size.

thank you guys.. i will be more careful with eyes in the future.

Honest CC.....ok:

I prefer the "before" version. Why? Well, it has a wonderful "soft and dreamy" look. That soft and dreamy quality is what makes it such a nice portrait, and yet unfortunately, that seems to be exactly what was processed out in the "after" version.

In the after version, there appears to be a lot more contrast in her skin. This means that the skins features and imperfections (such as mini-moles and creases) seem to stand out more. Why would we want to draw extra attention to, say, a crease near the corner of her mouth? Why would we want the tiny moles and freckles to "pop", and become more distinct and noticeable? Why would we want the glare coming off of her lips to contrast even more with the part of her lips that have no glare? Don't we want glare to subtly fade into the non-glare areas of skin and features?

There are three things that could be done to the original to make it more appealing, in my opinion:

1: Soften the entire forehead. There are many imperfections that make the forehead area somewhat unattractive. I see you have addressed this in the "after" version, but the way it was addressed could maybe have been done differently. It seems like maybe you introduced a new texture to cover the skin on her forehead. I say this because I see forehead skin texture in the after version that I do not see in the before version. I think that the results would be more pleasing if you would have simply retouched each of the imperfections out of the forehead. This would serve to retain the soft dreamy look and to get rid of the unattractive (bumpy) imperfections.

2: Sharpen the eyes - both the eyeballs themselves, as well as the edge of the eyelid that adjoins the eyeball, and the eye lashes, too. I think that just plain old sharpening would be the best way to handle this, and that no other "special" editing procedures would be needed or preferred.

3: Give a little - just a little - more contrast between the lips and the skin that is immediately surrounding the lips. This could be applied to only the very edge of each lip where it adjoins the skin, and it would be very effective. Just be very careful to ensure that the glare coming off the lips remains very soft an subtle.....any general (non-specific) increase in contrast or sharpness will make that lip glare nasty looking.

thank Tom for your thorough and honest cc. that's how i learn so i don't really mind what you're saying. and all of those are true except one. I did add a texture on the forehead. after smoothing i felt like the smoothing was too much so i just simply duplicate the texture layer of the frequency separation and brought down the blending opacity to about 30%.

I have another one without the extra texture layer and listening to what others had said about the overdone eyes popping.

here...

^ ^ The forehead is so perfect in that edit!

yah after looking at it again. i wish i left some lines... thank you.

i always listened to my critic. here's one more with a cropped version...

ohhhh i love the uncropped version,the tattoos and jeans are just plain sexy,thats the best pic of the bunch,the bokeh in the background is wonderful,that sony and your nikon are a great combo,i have a 135mm minolta for my sony and i love that focal length