Adjusting the levels etc manually is often better, the auto settings tend to be a bit off & I think you can see that in your picture - the contrast and colour balance etc is not quite right and looks like its been obviously played around with in PS. To be honest, I think the original picture with a couple of manual tweaks in "levels" would have been sufficient. Also, I would agree with others who said use the healing tool instead of the smudging tool as it will look more natural.

Good for the basics but its not the most effective way of doing things IMHO