Does anyone know how to improve skin textures by making them look more realistic? Ideally I would like to make some of the skin tones paler using photoshop. Any tips?

You can desaturate, for one thing. Something I have been playing with lately, which may be of interest, is adding a very subtle marble effect over skin. If you have a marble pattern generator/filter plug in, set the dark and light colours either side of your texture base colour, add a fill to a new layer, then blend it in using opacity. You can also experiment with the blending modes to produce different effects. A small scale marbling produces very realistic skin variations. With the right colour combinations it's also great for making realistic vein patterns for eyeballs, too.

The best image adjustment for lighting or making skin paler over large surfaces in my mind is Variations (Image > Adjustments > Variations). It gives a true lighter hue effect that can be controlled at many levels. Others like the doge tool bleaches more than lightens - its good for small areas but hard to control well over larger areas. Brightness and Contrast is better than doge if you are going to print but it seems to gray out fine detail I feel it is really a tool for contrasting purposes only. Anywaylighten the layer to the desired effect. You now have the option of adjusting the blending options to soften, harden, overlay or what ever. The marble effect SamTherapy mentioned is a very good one, but you can also get interesting effects by creating 2 additional layer copies of your skin texture on top of your base texture. It gives it a look of different surface qualities that veins close to the upper surfaces. Step One: Is used as a base 100% blend - do not touch. Step Two: The middle skin texture layer. Apply first an Image > adjustments > hue/saturation (Hue=-4) or towards the red)) and save. Then apply a sponge effect. Go to the filter > artist > sponge (Brush size=2 Definition=12 Smoothness=5) and finish off with blur more filter - save. Now turn down the transparency blend to about 40%. Step Three: The top and finial layer which is the same as the base one - set the transparency layer blend to about 20% - or just as much as you need to just see the red sponge coming up through the surface. Merge down and save.

I very seldom ever use a skin texture "as is", especially on nude character renders. I use the various tools/filters in my graphics program to change hue/saturation/contrast, etc., to get the effect I want. A lot can be learned by taking a texture and run it through some experimental tweaking. On some textures I also use local small area touch ups such as sharpen, blend, and other detail work. Nearly every graphics/paint program has filters and tools to completely change the look of a texture...and I think this is the method a lot of people use to create "new" textures from exsisting ones.

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Thank you for all your help. I'm going to give your suggestons a try. Thanks again