Originally Posted by Stephen

I like to select large areas of skin in Photoshop, contract 2px and feather the selection 2px - 4px, before hitting the Gaussian blur (this helps maintain distinct edges). Follow up with an unsharp mask at 50%, then use manual sharpening on specific highlights, such as eyes, piercings, etc.

It's easy to get the pic to pop, but still seem more "natural" in doing so...

There's many ways around the problem