Deib:
I popped the image to CS5, started to remove the lines at the back first, tried using content aware fill (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt). If auto fill doesnt work, ill usually grab a brush and dab the nearest color drop the opacity to 10-20% and start drawing over with a decent brush size that can cover the line at least, then ill work to blend both colors together with a layered gradient over the more obvious portions, then use a eraser brush at 10% opacity and slowly remove the more obviously unfitting colors. u gotta mix and match adding and removing til u get the right shades.
For facial clean up, the Healing Brush tool works fine. Hold ALT down and select a region you want to copy, and then when u let go you can attempt to replace the spot you are clicking with the copied portion, do note that colors that are too far apart dont work too well as they smudge big time and are often unusable when that happens.
Next to brighten up areas like the bottom left and right areas (esp left) i generally try to lasso tool the areas that are severely underexposed and do a contrast/brightness tweak to match the surrounding alittle more. I drop a radial white gradient on the darker areas in a new layer and then set the blending option to soft light (adjust the opacity to your liking)
I lasso'ed the teeth and dropped the saturation so that they dont show the yellowish color, then i change the tint alittle to it remains naturally white (make sure that they still look alright beside the gums.
As for overall color of the subject, I lasso the portions i want to edit, usually the whole person, and i play with levels/curves often ending up with darker blacks and brighter whites on levels (pull the left arrow and right arrows inwards alittle, u gauge) and then the curves would resemble a S tilted to the right alittle (though no so round, more gradual)
Lastly I crop the photo because its generally better to work with more colors and natural photo pixels/objects as they contain the natural colors of the scene.
My PP is still way behind the pro's but it gets me by most of the time