[kdshimada]

KB, lighting the shot even if you have to light areas and put them together like Atticfire does is better than just throwing up a light or two for your shot and trying to make it better in post (like the betterphoto.com shot). I don't know if your using strobes or hot lights but if you PM me, I can give you some hints on lighting. I don't want to clutter a retouching board with lighting talk.

[dweekley]

I just recently came across (I believe in Feb Adobe mag) a link of George Gruel's work and website. The article can be seen at www.oddstick.com/pdf/George_Gruel.pdf
beautiful architectural lighting work both in this article about turning day to night but also on his site www.oddstick.com are some interior and exteriors posted. It seems he knows a lot about lighting interiors and exteriors as well as Photoshop post work. Looks like he gives workshops and has some articles published, not sure if any books. I thought it would be worth a deeper look for those interested in this area.

[skydog]

A recently had a landscaper come to my house to give me some ideas. He had a program that allowed him put plants, trees, flowers etc all around my yard once from a photo he shot of my house. The program was very impressive. Any one familar with such a program?

[Markzebra]

The title of the thread "Architectural Retouching" - actually covers different areas. Its a very large field and there are many people earning very good livings doing this alone. Some knowledge of 3D is becoming more needed in this area, but KittyBuddha if its an interest of yours there is a living to be made.

As Ant has again correctly pointed out the samples onhere are not that great, they are more interiors than Architectural retouching. In fact IMHO most of the befores look better than the afters. They are oversharpened and oversaturated. It doesn't help that the jpegs on his website are massively overcompressed. But even though crude gradated dodge and burn, and overuse of local contrast has turned these reasonable starting shots into what honestly look like 3D renderings (more Max than Maya). Thats just my opinion.

Most professional architectural retouching works in conjunction with 3D sotware such as Rhino. The software can generate wireframes or or alpha channels as well as 3d renderings. The retoucher then uses the images provided to him and then "pimps it up" in Photoshop in a way that makes the architects client go "oh yeah - Ill buy that £300 million worth of glass and sandstone".