Splash!

The image on the left is the original that I downloaded from some site or the other. As you can see, it has been worked upon extensively, with Photoshop. The line running through the eyes was erased using the Rubber Stamp tool. The smallest brush was used to rebuild the left eyelid and iris. The entire face was softened using the blur tool at various pressure settings (this is very much like painting). The lips and nails were sauced up using blur and saturation, and the edges were sharpened afterwards for that extra punch. The pupils and lines around the nose lips and cheeks were sharpened to lend subtle definition. Finally, layers were used to accurately position the three copies, and a text layer added for the text.

The entire job took two weeks, working a few hours a day. The effort involved doesn't count - working on a beautiful face can't really be called work. How did I learn to do this? By reading Better Photography. Why did I name it Splash? It's short for SPeciaL ASH, dummy!