Help With Smooth Skin

[Don Majoros]

I am working on a restore for Christmas card for my brother.This is as far as I've gotten so far.Can anyone suggest how I can get the skin to look more natural?I have tried adding noise or texture,But the results are not acceptable.Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You,

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Don, what I did was to take a copy of the original, and paste it over the corrected picture, then I applied a layer mask, and using a soft black brush masked out the cracks and blemishes on the pasted layer. Lastly I adjusted the opacity of this layer to give best result. Hope this helps.

[vinniesworld]

Here's a fast job, still needs work.
Duplicated the background
Fixed the missing parts with the stamp tool.
Ran Neat Image.
Selective burn and dodge.
Layer mask to bring out the eyes, nostrils and lips.

[Vikki]

You're on the right track. You'll need to add some noise. If you're using Photoshop, try using "Grain" set to "soft". Apply that to a duplicate layer, then mask it off. Paint away the mask with a soft brush on the areas that need grain. You'll also need to bring back some highlights and shadows to the face to restore dimension.
For future reference, I would avoid whatever method you used to clean up the image, as it should not have made the image so smooth.
This still needs work, especially the hair....I did a little work on the cheek as it really bothered me.

[Flora]

Hi Don, everybody,

To remove scratches etc.:
I used Patch Tool, Heal Brush and 'Copy and Paste' for the damages.
To clean up a bit:
Curves (with the help of Layer Mask) to lighten up the darker spots.
To add dimension:
Filter>Distort>Diffuse Glow to brighten the highlights.
New empty Layer (blending>Overlay) and with a soft black brush(Opacity>10%) I painted over contours.
To remove noise:
Dust&Scratches and Neat Image.
To finish:
USM for a very light sharpening.
Hue&Saturation for a very light sepia toning.

[Don Majoros]

A very big hug to you all for your fine suggestions.I will try all of them to see if I can get the same results.This group is great!