This introduction video describes the basic retouching workflow used in the course, and provides an outline of the 7 different projects that cover the fundamental portrait retouching techniques. Part one covers basic retouching techniques including:

• Establishing good skin color and the basic use of Curves in Photoshop
• Basic spotting and healing for blemish removal
• Dodging and burning techniques for local shading
• Edge vignetting
• Hue/Saturation technique to remove blotchy red skin
• Lightening & darkening skin tones
• Basic beauty retouching & skin smoothing

I recommend that you work through the projects in order, concentrating on color issues first. This is important because most portrait photographers struggle with ideal skin color in the range of situations presented here, and often retouching is not as necessary as color correction. If you are impatient to "get to the retouching," you can skip ahead to the basic retouching video before going through the color correction videos, but DO NOT neglect color correction as it it extremely helpful for portrait photography!

After working through the 7 projects in part one, you will be ready to move on to part two.