Tried to take some advice, new model....

[mrbeagle]

ok I tried to listen to everyone's input from my last attempt and got some nice color tips from alison. So here's my latest attempt... I'm still not completely satisfied with the overall skin tone, it still seems blotchy. How do you fix that? Paint over the whole face with a low opacity brush?

http://www.litfuel.net/pics/before_after12_small.jpg

[Blindv]

Be advised, this could turn into a blind leading the blind post, but here goes none the less

The first thing that I notice is an inconsistency in the texture of the skin in the face and above the forward eye as well as around the hair line.

You could create a new layer and then use a soft brush in color mode to paint in a unified tone. Then reduce the opacity into the 20-30% depending on the color you choose. The only issue here is, you'll risk flattening the contrast on the face.

What method are you using for resurfacing her skin? Do you employ a gaussian blur at all?

[Damo77]

One little thing - I don't like your new background. I mean, I don't mind the colour, it just looks dodgy because there's a white line where the hair and skin meet the background.

You would have done much better to:
(a) select the background (maybe with a magic wand, though I hate it, personally - much better to use Quick Mask)
(b) enlarge the selection by a few pixels then feather by the same amount
(c) use Selective Colour and add magenta to whites

That would have given you a good starting point. From there you could dodge and burn the magenta to achieve the vignette you want.