Okay! So here's what I did to this photo, using Photoshop CS:

1) Cropped the sky out

2) Ran the Shadows and Highlights filter (can be done with more manual work by copying the layer and changing the layer type to Screen until it's as light as you want it)

3) Used Rubber Stamp to take out the man behind the shirt rack on the right (he was distracting and I wanted the focus to be on her)

4) Copied the layer.

5) Ran Gaussian Blur on the original.

6) Used the Eraser tool at 85% opacity to erase parts of her face, and hands so that the noise disappeared. (I have Neat Image, but I've found that this method is more reliable)

7) Merged layers

8) Extracted everything in the forefront (feathered 2)

9) Copy / Paste (so now the forefront is a new layer)

10) Ran Lens Blur on the Original Layer (this brings, again, the focus to her and helps eliminate the busyness of the background)

11) Played with Brightness and Contrast on the Forefront layer until I liked the results

12) Merged layers

13) Saved as JPG, High

Comments? Questions? Anyone else want to give it a try?

Here's the original, at the original size in JPG format (large file size, sorry)

http://www.quirkynomads.com/spbefore1.jpg