Sorry the tut I promised is taking so long, Its a comprehensive e-book on the subject.
Any way hear is a Render of a new head, with my skin shader tenique
/facepalm
I actually laughed out loud. Reading the title and then seeing this, was shocking. You seriously need to get back on the ground and reflect what “near photo realism” is actually. I also think you should work a lot more on your texturing and modeling skills before writing a “comprehensive” e-book.
It’s a solid start, there are a couple things you’re immediately missing, though. One, the scene seems to be lit from every direction, which makes his face look a little shapeless and funky. Two, I think his skin needs to be a little shinier, human skin is generally shinier than we think, although the way lighting works in the real world means this is rather hard to duplicate exactly in 3d.
Another small side note is that, although your textures are actually really very good, they’re missing a few details. Like the insides of eyelids are a shiny pinkish red, and very thin-skinned. There tends to be old skin and stuff around the join between the nostrils and the rest of the face, where there’s not as much friction.
While the details of your skin are actually pretty good, there are a lot of them, everywhere, which makes your guy look a little odd, because usually things like blood vessels and discolourations are a lot fainter and less visible than they are in your texture. The lips are a bit too solid red/pink btw. Make them more of a faded… cherry… burgundy kind of a thing, and add some paler flakes for dead skin as well.