Why Your Composites Look Fake (And How Masking Is Almost Always the Reason)

I once spent four days on a single edge. It was a portrait composite, a woman standing against a stormy sky, her hair blown sideways by wind that existed in neither of the two source photographs. The sky was dramatic. The lighting sold it. But something kept pulling me out of the image every time I looked at it, something around the crown of her head where the hair met the clouds.