I've done softbrush before (never looked that good though) I've got some really nice actions that I wrote while I was working for a photo studio, along with some great tutorials I wrote (buried somewhere on my PC) nothing that came out quite that well, but they're good resources none-the-less
I didn't really check out the process, but the before and afters of that picture are pretty cool. Very subtle but it adds a lot to the picture of you take a step back and look at them with fresh eyes.