Please may I have the best and easaier method of smoothing skin in Photoshop 8 please

I'm not sure about PS8 i have CS5. The simplest way to do this is to open you image, then in the layers panel, duplicate the background image. Now go to filters and select a blur which works well. Either Surface blur or gaussian blur. Blur the copied image, not too much dont worry about the clothes etc just look at the skin. Now when you have done that, create a layer mask on that blurred layer, and select the mask then press ctrl + I this will invert the mask and make the layer disappear. Now select the brush tool, press D on the key board to set the foreground and background to default. (black and white or vice versa) and start to paint the blur back on to the skin. when this done, just adjust the opacity of the layer on the top of the layers panel so the bluring isnt too much and u should have some nice smooth skin if you took your time and did it right!!