Alan,
The links you posted seem to suggest the effect you are after may be the result of luminance masking, perhaps coupled with a knockout layer to protect the eyes. Try this procedure:
(a) Duplicate the background layer CTRL + J (and perhaps rename it Blur as that helps to emphasise the purpose of the new layer).
(b) With the new Blur layer active, from the Menu bar choose Filter/Blur/Gaussian blur about 20% for starters each image may require slight variations to this amount.
(c) Turn off the visibility of the new Blur layer and select/make active the Background layer.
(d) Go to Channels Palette and CTRL click on the Red channel. Return to the Layers Palette. Turn visibility of new Blur layer back on and select it.
(e) With the new Blur layer active, click the Add layer mask button at the bottom of the Layers Palette this adds the Luminosity Mask to this layer and results in seeing the Gaussian blur now only inside the lightest (50%) details of the image. Now change the Blend Mode of this layer from Normal to Overlay. If the effect seems too strong, try the Soft Light blend mode which is less severe. If you want a greater effect than Overlay delivers, try Linear Light. You can back off the effect of any of these blend modes with the Opacity slider but that would, I think, also back off the amount of Blur, which may or may not (depending upon the image) lessen the overall effect you are aiming for.
(f) Next comes the Knockout Layer (KL) to remove the effect of these Blur and Blend Mode edits from the eyes. The KL must be on top of the Blur layer, so make the Blur layer active and then add a new transparent layer above it - CTRL + Shift + N and name it Knockout.
(g) On the new KL, select the eyes with the Elliptical Marquee Tool (select too much rather than too little reason follows later) and fill the selection with Black ALT + Backspace (provided Foreground Colour in Tools Palette is Black). Then deselect the eyes CTRL + D.
(h) Bring up the Layer Style dialog box (LSDB) by double clicking on the icon for the KL. In the LSDB change Knockout from None to Shallow and reduce Fill Opacity from 100 to zero % and click OK which dismisses the LSDB. That is it you have now eliminated the effects of the Blur layer on the eyes using the Black holes on the KL.
(i) To remove any excess eye selection, you use the Eraser tool (set to about 50% hardness) and paint around the edges of the eyes with the Eraser tool what this is doing is reducing the size of the holes in the KL and bringing back the effects of the edits from the Blur layer.
