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

I had a deadline once for a thriller book cover. The brief was straightforward: a woman standing in a foggy alley, lit from above by a single streetlamp. I had the perfect stock shot of the model, great alley photography from a shoot I did in Red Hook, and I was moving fast. I made my selection with the Quick Selection tool, cleaned it up a little, and called it done.