Help needed with PP

I've been tryin to improve this photo with some PP, espcially softening the face. Tried using layer masks and gaussian blur, but i just get in a mess.

Im still learning Photoshop, i know what im doing in there, but not what I 'should' be doing. If anyone could provide any advice to how to do any worthwhile proccessing on this image. In particular making the face softer. but any ideas would be great. I'm never too sure what I should be applying to different photos.

Hope thats all clear, please feel free to ask questions if I've been a little ambiguous or just rambled on.

I've posted a link to the original, please feel free to play around with it. Please let me know what you have done, so that I can practice the techniques.

Can anyone help?

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I actually found this tutorial quite useful...

http://www.okongraphic​s.com …ials/portraitre​touch.html

But just cant get it spot on. I know this takes practice.

Chris

Here is my go at it....just my standard portrait retouching.

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