Dear heavenly Father

[selig1656]

P1000434 crop vig by Raymond Friedman, on Flickr

[pschlute]

I like it.

[Manfred M]

Raymond - while I like the concept, I find that the actual execution is a bit heavy-handed. The blur / vignette is so noticeable that it is a distraction. Perhaps not being quite as aggressive would be more effective?

[selig1656]

this is the original edit
P1000433 basic edit by Raymond Friedman, on Flickr

[Manfred M]

Much better without that distracting blur. You could consider a tighter crop to eliminate parts of the image that don't really add to the composition.

[DanK]

I agree with Manfred that cropping would help. It would also make blur less important by removing some distracting background. I might crop less than Manfred, but I would then dodge and burn to make the subject stand out more. I burned the sky, then burned to create a slight vignette, and then dodged to brighten the left (viewer's right) side of her face. That gives me this:

[joebranko]

Beautiful. Looks like a Christmas Card.