Retouch opinions needed & the most beautiful song I've heard this year

I spent too much time over the past few days trying to figure out where this needs improvement. Hopefully you can't even tell where I've retouched, but you can probably tell where it needs work. It looks so much better in .psd, but meh. I haven't a preference for B&W versus color.

Much love to all who partied hard this weekend, and a big up to Ra Ra Riot for impressing me at the Westcott.

Cue the song below when looking at the photos, because that way maybe they'll appear more beautiful. It's called Samba da Bençåo and is by Bebel Gilberto.

edit: I put side-by-sides to make this process easier.

Unedited Photo

I had a friend come up. She and I spent a few hours in the studio, and here is a photo I made. It's been retouched for about six minutes. Other than that, it still requires a bit of work. We'll have her stay up and let's see how much she changes.

Edit: Originally had two photos, deleted one due to redundancy.