How to take professional pictures at home?

I'm not talking about having like a particular solid background, just anywhere. I got photos professionally taken outside one day during the summer and the photos are amazing! My eyes look gorgeous and i look totally flawless and glowing. I have a professional nikon camera that the photographer had. How can I make them look so good? By the say, i can't download or buy any software on my computer.

Have good lighting, and some nice things around your house while you are taking pictures (flowers, paintings, etc.) And a good camera helps too!

Honestly, a lot of professionals photoshop their pictures. It makes reality a bit better. You can use free sites like befunky.com, but the one I think works best is aviary (an extension of Flickr.) You can do simple things like enhance, so it'll still look normal but better. Other than that, just practice normal photography techniques. Look up some good articles.

Professional is not a synonym for good. You have to get paid for them in order for them to be professional.

Take note of exactly what the photographer did and how he did it. Then try to replicate the same things yourself.
Don't forget that being a professional means getting paid for work, so he had to get things perfect. No doubt he did a bit of work on the computer to get the skin flawless and eyes glowing.

That's the difference between owning a 'professional' camera & knowing how to use one.

Perhaps you now realise that it's the professional behind the camera that counts!

It's not to do with software, or post processing. A professional knows about exposure & lighting & probably has better lenses than the kit lens.

I shoot portraits & the lenses I use are 50mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8 and the 24-70mm f2.8.

A good (& cheap) portrait lens to start out with is the 50mm f1.8 - it will give far better results than the kit lens I'm assuming you have.

To take a self portrait ideally you need a tripod & remote shutter release - DON'T take it at arm's length! Or, failing that get someone else to take it.

If you take the time to actually LEARN about exposure, lighting & composition, then there's no reason why you can't get decent images out of your Nikon - but I suspect you just use it on Auto all the time.

"I have a professional nikon camera that the photographer had."

I own a better computer than what was used to animate the film The Incredibles but that doesn;t mean I'll EVER be able to match that quality. The camer (and in my example the computer) is only a tool… You need to learn how to use that tool.

You need to understand how to use your camera,
You need to learn how to SEE the light in a scene,
You need to learn about posing and composition…

There's just way too much to cover in a Y! A box.

Start by getting Scott Kelbys 4 book boxset.