I have dreamed for years, fighting with all the small inevitable defects of photographs with the possibility of being able to fix images.
And it finally became reality, so I have been working on Photoshop image retouching since 1994, Photoshop 2.5 it was. Ideas about "how to do it" were already there, skills and sensitivity too. I was just waiting for the right tools, now I've got plenty.
My retouching work is mostly related to fixing defects or recreating what is not available yet, mainly in the mechanical field. I think creating an image that is perfectly plausible is way more difficult than making those fake "dungeon & dragon atmospheres".
If you need something looking "absolutely real": I can do it, this is all 1995-1999 work.