Paul,(posted 8355 days ago)I've seen your site (a very nice site which I see you have expanded significantly). (I think I found it from a post of yours on the Fashion Only Forum?) I'm just getting started with teaching myself retouching. This is the first thing I've done that I think worked without drastically affecting the quality of the image. It was after reading an article about Helene Delillo (www.dancingicon.com for others who might be interested), that I started to realize just how important retouching is to the finished product. I don't really have any intention of becoming a retoucher for hire, but right now I can't afford to send any work out. I'm mainly concentrating on techniques that would be useful for enhancing wedding shots, since that's they way I hope to make a living in the near future.
The only other shot I seriously attempted to retouch was this one (http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=181925). The model had some very bad acne, and the only way I could figure out to get rid of it also elminated most of the detail in her skin. However, for the low-res offset printing of her headshot, it seemed to work fine. (I'll see if I can find the "before" image.)
I post miscellaneous shots on Photo.net (http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=14701) and have a site (mainly for wedding photography) under construction at www.johnkantor.com.