When writing this post, I was a bit hesitant whether I would actually post it. I think it's good to look back at old workflows to see how you've changed, what has gotten better or worse - then develop further from that.
I get asked about retouching a lot. My retouching workflow is fairly basic, a bit of skin/hair retouching and then messing around with the tones of the image.
There are two ways to edit a photo; destructively, and non destructively. In both videos, I edited them destructively. For example, when I was retouching the skin I was using the Spot Healing brush on just a duplicated layer (I tend to make lots of duplicated layers, sort of like a video game quicksave).
What I do now, is edit skin through Frequency Separation. FS allows the photo to be edited by either colour or detail - which is what a photo is made of, detail and colour. When retouching spots, I tend to edit the colour/tone layer (low frequency) before the detail one. I do this because a spot might just be visible due to its redness. Blending colour is easier than blending the details of the skin.
This post isn't meant to be a guide, I just wanted to share how I previously edit. The video pretty much breaks down how I edit. I'll most likely make an updated video soon, and hopefully an improvement will be clear!