D800: iso 140, f/3.2, tightly cropped...

This young lady certainly could be photographed with a Kodak D260 and look great!

Fact is that she was actually shot with a D800 in a 3/4 frame. It is a great testament to the quality of the D800 that a full image could be cropped so tightly and still retain great detail.

So, to answer the question of skin softening, I think what you are seeing is actually oof areas that resulted from the f/3.2 aperture.

Here is the original size of the image (had to upload a similar image since I couldn't get to the original from where I am now):

As you can see, her earring and hair are oof just further away from her eyes (focal target). So, here is a closeup of her face, showing tons of detail in the in-focus field, and much smoother areas where the image is oof:

Finally, I did fix the double catch lights in her eyes on the version posted on my website, and even though they did not bother me, I will certainly be alert to those artifacts in future images.

Again, thanks to all!