This image shows how I retouched a photo of Ben on my lap before sending it to Kodak for printing. I was experimenting with the soft focus and some other features in Paint Shop Pro. I have used them to clean up images of trains and whanot before, but rarely people. Click on the image for a larger version

I selected the background using the edge selection tool. Once I had that, I experimented with increasing and feathering the selection to allow me to gaussian blur the background without getting a really obvious halo around the subject. Next I decreased the brightness and the saturation of the backgound, making it almost black and white. The next step was the clear the selection and run the Soft Focus filter on the foreground. Finally, I increased the brightness and contrast on the whole image to make the colors pop a bit.

This was all done in Paint Shop Pro 9