My secret is that I have no secret! I use bounced flash off walls in my house. This girl was sitting on my stairs inside. I had on an overhead weak bulb to focus, then bounced flash off the wall behind me. Just think what I might produce if I actually had a studio, or some real lighting..LOL
OH, post editing is where the magic is. I heavily dodge eyes, hair other areas of light till it all looks fake and horrible, then I ran virtual photographer (classic I think) with custom settings.
In case anyone is interested. Here was the original pic. All I did here was resize,sharpen.