I'm really trying to find help on retouching photos and my goal is to become a high end expert, but help is really hard to find!!! Please help I'll even pay for it, is there a school or some books or anything at all will be helpful.

here is the link to my first shot at retouching http://www.marcusdewayne.com/tmoss_edit.jpg

I think it looks Great, The people on here can sometimes be asses and rip you apart but i cant see exactly what it is they could possibly say.
I too have issues finding hi-res photos to retouch, especially with ethnic people, retouching the same skin tone is begining to get very boring, heres some model portraits that you can play around with though:


http://www.lipstickfetish.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9579

I ain't professional (yet), but I like your retouch. Nice skin tones =)

The only thing I must complain is that you kinda blow some detalis trying to clean her face. Take a look at some parts of her left cheek, near the nose. I'ts blured there.

You could also have cleaned a little bit the eyes.

I'm really trying to find help on retouching photos and my goal is to become a high end expert, but help is really hard to find!!! Please help I'll even pay for it, is there a school or some books or anything at all will be helpful.

here is the link to my first shot at retouching http://www.marcusdewayne.com/tmoss_edit.jpg

I understand that therefore sometimes I take the photos that I edit. I actually took that one.

I ain't professional (yet), but I like your retouch. Nice skin tones =)

The only thing I must complain is that you kinda blow some detalis trying to clean her face. Take a look at some parts of her left cheek, near the nose. I'ts blured there.

You could also have cleaned a little bit the eyes.

Thanks for your input!!!

I also tried the same steps on body skin and it came out horrible!!!

What you exactly did?

i followed most of the steps from the godmother video.

Degrunge tech.

I've never tried that on a body, but, since face's skin is different from body's skin you should keep degrunge only for faces. Or, you could only do the dodge and burn, takes time but you can archieve good results. =)

I'm in the process of learning dodge and burn it's not completely clear to me how to use it and when to use it.

I'm also.

But, for what I've been seeing, I can say: In everywhere! LOL!

BTW: This is an unfinished retouch. Just posted as example. I didn't use clone/healing/patch.

wow i hope i can do that one day!

You'll never know if don't start.

Not difficult.
It's far from perfect yet.

Dodge and burn. Where is too bright, paint black, where is too dark, paint white. 50% gray layer, soft mode. Zoom if you need. Start now! GO GO GO! _o/

Hope that helped =D

check out this view, I dont know if i should trust it or not http://www.digitalphotoshopretouching.com/order.htm