In Photoshop, I find the liquify tool is a great way to start out for beginners. After a little practice though I would expand to using the clone stamp tool, it provides you with greater control of what you want to do; as well as preventing distorting of other structures that accidentally get in the way (if you do do this with the liquifying tool no worries, go back and use the history brush). Other tools in PS that you may want to consider is using different opacities on the clone stamp tool; e.g. you want to change shadows/ brighter areas and make them look appropriate for a female face. Perhaps consider using the lasso tool to outline your skin, doing a layer via, and changing the your skin pigment (HRT does this). The list can go on and on.
The trick I find to Virtual FFS is not to over do it (you want it to be realistic); as in, do as little steps as possible. This means taking away (as in the brow, nose, etc) or adding (lips, cheeks) where a surgeon would add. The results of overdoing it is readily apparent by an overall plastic feel to the tone of the skin and face; you will also notice distortion where things were overdone. If you want your work to be realistic, play with photoshop, put the photo away. Look at it a couple days later when you have had sometime to not be caught up in the work, and ask yourself how could I make this more realistic? What could I improve on (as in technique wise?
The Virtual FFS website is a great starter tool to have some understanding of what is going on, and read the info the owner has. Then you can then practice on pics (I presume of yourself). In addition consider looking at pictures of female faces and notice commonalities they all have that male faces don't. For example, the shadows and highlighting (and hence contour) of a female forehead is much different than a male. This what an FFS Surgeon tries to replicate, replicate that in photoshop and experiment with the different tools to do this.
If I think of some good advice I will post later! Hope this helped!
