Using Gimp to make Photos look Professional

If you're doing a portrait, I recommend using the wavelet de-noise plug-in, even when not noisy. Whenever I want a "baby skin" look, I select the eyes, invert the selection (so only the eyes aren't selected) and then use the plug-in. Not only does it soften the picture, by not doing it on the eyes, it makes them stand out and look more vibrant. It's not for every picture, but when you find one that it works well on, you can get amazing results! Generally for blemishes I just use blur tool, usually at a 100% rate. Other times I use the color select tool, and set it to select a 5-15px area of skin near the blemish, then on low opacity, use a blurred brush over it. Here are a few links to the help files/tutorials/etc that you might like, that actually I just discovered today (haha, seriously!). I cannot guarantee they'll work for you as the help files are for GIMP 2.4, which I personally am sticking to until they have more working plugins for 2.6, and the tuts are for even older versions, but basically the same guidelines apply http://gimp.org/tutorials/Blur_Overlays/ http://gimp.org/tutorials/Film_Grain/ http://gimp.org/tutorials/Selective_Color/ http://gimp.org/tutorials/Blown_Out_Highlights/ (honestly, I think it's a lot of work whereas you can do it other ways that aren't so "exact" but that others will never notice unless you point it out to them...I still don't know how to use masks, so I go for the later!) http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-imaging-photos.html Well, I could go on forever, but since I don't know exactly what you're looking for, I'll save myself a few hours and wait until I know what you think of my tips. Also, sometimes odd crops are the best ones. Using the rule of thirds, golden ratio/etc can really make a difference! Oh, yeah, and go to GIMPtalk.com....basically it's the ultimate GIMP community. (Yes, I'm a member!) They have too many tutorials to count and you will almost always get at least one answer to your question.