[I]" I was hoping for something that would also allow burning and dodging. Basically to achieve the look you see in glamour mags."[/I]

The look you see in glamour mags is for just one frame. If you're really keen you could open the video in Photoshop or export an image sequence out of Vegas and work on each frame in any photo editing program.

A more practical solution would be a makeup artist. I think there's a good reason they haven't been replaced by software. You could also try lighting.

Bob.

Photoshop is where I would go with this too. Certainly not free, nor easy, but you can work with video and use a lot of good tools and masks.

One technique that might be adaptable is frequency separations:
[link = http://phlearn.com/amazing-power-frequency-separation-retouching-photoshop]

There's a lot more on the Phlearn site that might be adaptable:
[link = http://phlearn.com/category/photoshop/retouching-photoshop]

Rob

I will check out the NewBlue plugin. I referenced the look of mags, but I'm working with video.

The good thing about the newblue plugin is that it creates a travelling matte. It doesn't allow you to dodge and burn but maybe another plugin in the package would do that.

Rob

There is Red Giant's COSMO which is also included in the Looks plugin.

It looks like you can get Cosmo singly for $99.00
http://www.redgiant.com/products/cosmo/

This and the Newblue tool look like they do some denoising or blurring of skin tones. If you also want some dodge and burn capabilities what would you add from these suites? Basically you're looking for a grading tool in addition to a cosmetic smoother.

Rob

I did a little with Mocha Pro for detail like removing blemishes etc. that works well essentially you choose a few key frames at points where there are any major changes much like you start off with animation then you can Photoshop those out and essentially create clean plates then track the features you want to change then then use Mocha's remove tool with the clean plates you have created to remove the areas you want over all the frames.

Then you can go over with the general touch up tools from whatever Gaussian blur etc.etc.

Hitfilm 3 has a beauty plugin and can now import tracked mattes from mocha and has a replace capability and the new project mode, I'm sure you could do the same there as well if not better with a bit of work if you have it as part of the suite.

Well I checked out the Beauty Box demo. Works pretty good but it's a little expensive at $179, considering how much I will use it. Red Giant Cosmo looks very goodat $99, but I have Vegas pro 11 and it's not compatable. NewBlueFX has a very simple Skin Touch Up plugin but it's part of a >$300 package. It doesn't look like they sell it individually. So I'm back to playing with Mocha and Clean plates. It's just more work than it need to be.

On the still image side I found frequency separation seem to be the best route for skin touch up. I use Gimp and found a plugin call wavelet decompress that works very good. Basically it seaprates various the image into several tecture and color layers, so you can work on them individually.

Don't forget Magic Bullet Looks. It includes Cosmo (and a ton of other tools) and should work in Vegas 11.

I don't know how useful this is but there was a project called film-gimp. It's now CinePaint. It doesn't look like it's actively developed but it might have something to offer you, especially if it can run your plugin.

Rob

I must say that I use Beauty Box more than I thought I would. One of my main mottos as I shoot and edit is that if there is a woman in the shot, how good I make her look is how good I make myself look as a woman is how good I make myself look as a cameraman. That that is the main criteria of how I am going to be judged.

Yes I have tried the New Blue skin smoothing plugins, and no, they don't look nearly as good. You can also do sort of the same thing with a chroma-key plugin. Put two layers of the same video over top of each other. Blur the bottom layer slightly, then key out the skin tones of the top layer. Make sure you are using 32 bit color when you do this. Beauty Box does this a little better though, so I use it.

I've also smoothed out wrinkled necks with Beauty box. Overlay two layers of the same footage with the wrinkly neck. Apply BB to the bottom layer, then cut out a horizontal strip across the neck line of the top layer. I've also done this with BB on both layers, but a stronger version on the neck layer.

Be aware that BB adds orders of magnitude to your render times. I would consider that to be even more painful than the price.

On a related note, you can use BB in reverse if you want to make someone look older and more haggard. Kind of fun actually! :-)