Headshot Critique Please

[NikonErik]

This image got beat up on another forum. What do you folks think?

Based on what they said I reworked the image, but before I show the "after," here's the one I first posted:

[supertackyman]

unless it was intentional, I feel that your depth of focus is a bit shallow.
her eyeballs, the bridge of her nose, and her likp are in sharp focus. but her outer eyelashes are blurry. her chin is sharp, and her jawline fades into a blur.

this does draw attention to her eyes and mouth, but as i look over the rest of her face i feel myself struggling to focus.

[Tamlin]

I'd have to agree with STM about the focus issue. Other than that, it looks like a good shot to me.

[NikonErik]

Okay . . . this is what everyone said. It took me a while to get over myself a little and see what you guy see. It's not a focus issue, just a poor attempt at a post-capture soft focus beauty retouching technique. What I learned from this is "Don't retouch images in the middle of the night when I'm exausted!"

Here's the re-do:

[Tamlin]

That's a much better starting point!
I would suggest the first thing to try would be Photoshop's Surface Blur filter (CS2 and above) to smooth out some of the skin detail (pores, lines etc.) that have been accentuated by the strong directional lighting.

[NikonErik]

Whups! The photo above WAS the starting point. Good call Tamlin.

Here's my most recent final:

[Tamlin]

That's good - a much more effective soft-focus look.