Help with retouching workflow / sharpening

Hi all,

Apologies if this is a repost, I think I messed something up.

I am looking for some help with my workflow and retouching. I'm struggling with skin and sharpening.

My toolbox currently consists of Lightroom 3 and Adobe Photoshop CS3. The following pictures were shot yesterday before my umbrella self destructed, so they're nott what I wanted them to be (I was still trying to setup), but they illustrate my problem.

The first picture doesn't have any sharpening. The second was sharpened in lightroom. I don't like either of these, but I really dislike the second one. The sharpening has brought all of the worst skin and hair bits out. But without this, I can't sharpen the eyes.

As an example, I really liked some of the pictures in the Bridesmaid thread at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=35952889 . My victim obviously wasn't made up with skin smoothing makeup and the light wasn't right, but this is a good example of what i'm trying to learn how to do.

Any pointers to tutorials or any specific advice on how to retouch images like this would really be much appreciated!

First image - no sharpening

Second image - sharpened in lightroom

Full size versions are available at content/FaceSharpening-FULLSIZE-1.jpg and FaceSharpening-FULLSIZE-2.jpg if that's of any use?

Thank in advance!