Hey there all, I feel fortunate that I stumbled upon this site the other day. I can't remember now exactly what I was looking for at the time but it had to do with restoration not retouching. I didn't realize there was such a huge community that just did retouching. I am engrossed in all the information you guys have posted and have just now been able to pull myself away to say hi.
I started messing around with restoration a few years ago but my time was quickly taken away from me by work and then the what seemed to be sudden appearance of my two children. Just recently I've changed jobs and my kids are older so I seem to have a little more time on my hands again so I've come back to dabble again.
I love art but unfortunately am not artistically inclined myself, more technically inclined than anything. I've had some good results with restoration, at least I've made a few friends happy with what I could bring back for them. Luckily, it seems that restoration (not so much retouching) has a lot of technical aspects and I love doing it.
I have already learned tons in just a few days browsing and hope to learn more as time goes by. I don't have much of a 'portfolio' at the moment but am working on it now. I hope to start posting to the forums sometime in the new year. See you all there!