My PP for portrait is just horrible....

I mean my touch up on portrait PP is just too plain. Correct WB, and sharpen image. Is there any CD session, or software that can improve my techniques? Sometimes I get customers asking if I can do a different color tint on the pictures. Heck it's hard as it is for me to get the color correct. If any PP pros can offer some advice I would appreciate it. BTW, I've watched youtube and it's confusing sometimes and aren't detail vs. books and CD videos.

Well, you can check Lynda.com and KelbyTraining.com for some tutorials -- they are pay-for sites but with a wealth of info.

You could also check RetouchPro.com.

There are some software apps for portraiture, including the Portraiture app.

Along with the above, I'd say the next step, armed with some knowledge from those sites, would be to spend time browsing sites for portraits that appeal to you and see if you can "reverse-engineer" them...people here can give some input on this, general ideas, but in the end it's up to you to get a "grip" on what you are doing...at least those are my thoughts, but then I'm not a portrait photographer...

tonylong wrote in post #13981229
Well, you can check Lynda.com and KelbyTraining.com for some tutorials -- they are pay-for sites but with a wealth of info.

You could also check RetouchPro.com.

There are some software apps for portraiture, including the Portraiture app.

Along with the above, I'd say the next step, armed with some knowledge from those sites, would be to spend time browsing sites for portraits that appeal to you and see if you can "reverse-engineer" them...people here can give some input on this, general ideas, but in the end it's up to you to get a "grip" on what you are doing...at least those are my thoughts, but then I'm not a portrait photographer...

I have imagnomic for portrait work. But sometimes I feel my pictures don't have a unique look to it. That's why I'm just asking. I'll have to check out those sites.

Heh! Think about it -- you want "unique", come up with someting and post here!

I have found that "Photographer's Guide To The Digital Portrait, Start to Finish With Adibe Photoshop" by Al Auldeman to be a good reference for retouching portraits. Although it is an older book (Copyright 2004) and aimed at Photoshop 7; it is still quite applicable to today's technology. Best of all, it is available very inexpensively on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com …693&sr=1-35&condition=new

OTOH, Portrait Professional can do a very acceptable and very fast job of retouching a portrait. Some purists don't like Portrait Pro because you don't end up with an image that is absolutely true to life. However, if you believe that the purpose of a portrait (especially a female portrait) is to show the subject in the most flattering way possible, then Portrait Pro might be what you need. Anyway, there is a free trial at: http://www.portraitpro​fessional.com …I2T89SGwa4CFWob​QgodBnQ6kg

I personally believe that you are editing a person's looks from the first time you frame the image and that you continue the alteration with makeup, lighting, clothing and flattering poses so, I don't have anything against Portrait Pro.

BTW: You don't have to accept the defaults in Portrait pro. You can customize any retouch job to the way you like it...