Critique my skin softening work please

I have only recently been dabbling in Photoshop skin blemish removal and skin softening techniques. I will post the before and after pics I did and will welcome any and all comments and suggestions on the work I did. Thanks! I know you will be honest and I expect nothing less!
Here is the before shot. Picture was taken with on camera flash so I am not looking for any lighting tips....just skin work please!

Here is the after pic. I forgot to mention that I brightened the babies eyes a bit

I really like it. The only thing I would do is touch up slightly the reflection of her shoulder... it's a little distracting

That is why I am learning so much here.....You guys don't miss anything. You are absolutely right about the shoulder and I never even saw it. I have been having a problem with slightly overdoing the skin and this is the first one I think came out at least fairly good. Keep the comments coming guys and gals!

Not overdone at all, looks great to me. Give me the run down on your skin technique if you dont' mind and how did you did you lighten those eyes?

Well done..I like this photo as well.

PhotoRook wrote in post #6161156
Not overdone at all, looks great to me. Give me the run down on your skin technique if you dont' mind and how did you did you lighten those eyes?

Thanks for the postitive feedback guys. I thought it looked good but I don't have the "eye" for it all yet.
For the above question all I did was take a spot healing brush to all of the blemishes I wanted removed....then I made a duplicate layer. Next I used the Dust and scratches addition in the filter section to add a bit of blur to everything...not too much...maybe a 3 or so. Then I went back to the filter section and added about the same amount of Gaussian blur. You have to experiment a bit with it. Then I added some noise to give the skin some texture, but not too much. Finally, make a layer mask and paint on it with the brush to allow the skin softening to come through wherever you want it. I got the tutorial off of you-tube and step by step it isn't really that hard, once you understand the steps they are talking about. The whole procedure took less than 5 minutes or so.
To fix the eyes all you have to do is flatten the image after doing all the other work and then make another blank layer. Click on the blank layer and then enlarge the image and paint on the entire colored part of the eyes with a brush with the color that is close to what you would like to end up with. It will look funny until you select "overlay" in you layers section. Then just go to enhance image and select color.....then adjust hue and saturation. Use the sliders to get the look you want...very easy and fast....once you do it a time or 2. Enjoy!!

The softening technique is pretty good. The only caveat I would offer is to make sure you don't remove moles or birthmarks unless asked too. Everyone loves the pimples gone though

Well done, the edit, too.

I think the skin softening is just right.

I'm not really liking the brightened eyes, that much (on the baby). The skin softening, however, looks really good. Very well done on the skin!

710 Studio wrote in post #6164624
I'm not really liking the brightened eyes, that much (on the baby). The skin softening, however, looks really good. Very well done on the skin!

Thanks guys.......it was toss up as to whether to remove the moles or not...probably is better to leave some there to give the photo a more realistic appearance. I agree that the babies eyes are a bit too bright to be totally believable but I just liked the way it looked when I did it.