Hi all,
here's another example of the application of Inkscape 0.46 for photo retouching. I did thsi one yesterday and assembled a JPG showing the different stages of editing. After working in Inkscape, I imported the PNG into Gimp to do some final retouching, add some HSV noise, adjusting 'levels' & apply an advanced Unsharp Mask.
The keys for this editing technique are
a) that the inserted SVG pieces are somewhat blurred, and b) that the opacity is somewhat reduced. In addition, I used a few gradients where the color distribution was not even. Right on top of the image, I've put two details: a) before, and b) after editing. I find that this approach works better (at least for me) than mere bitmap editing using the clone brush, etc.
Here's the link:
http://home.arcor.de/ccyrny/images/bild015_neg.nr.n15a._detail_4x.jpg
Claus