I've tried the FFT tutorial here on retouch pro, but the end result that I get is just a slightly different shading on the image, the texture seems to all remain in tact. Can anyone get the texture off of this image and tell me perhaps what I am missing?

All I did was run this through NeatImage and told it to "remove all noise." I suppose with selective masks and playing with the settings you could prevent the edges from becoming too soft. It's not perfect but it cuts down the work a lot. :)

good job there, irshgrlkc!

i'd like to see your image sharpened a bit now. maybe a usm sharpen.

Wow, guess it pays to start simple! :)