guardian angel

[jetrim]

OK last angel shot for a while, I promise This was born out of ideas I got from comments in the prior angel thread. 5 layers, from 2 cameras, over a span of 3 years and 1700 miles. Thoughts? Improvements?

[caleb]

I like this one, my only gripe is her hands, but off the bat I don't know how to correct them. Her left hand looks a lot more desaturated than the rest of her body and there are clipping issues. maybe a really transparent drop shadow (or highlight) would help too?

A tip for clipping: get the area you want outlined with pen tool or whatever selection tool you prefer... Select>Modify>Contract by 1.5-2 px... Select>Modify>Smooth by 2-3 px... Select>Inverse... Select>Modify>Feather by .5 px... That assumes a really high-res image, you might have to adjust the numbers a little

[icicle]

I have no complaints

[Greg McCary]

I like the idea and think you are onto something. But with this I think she looks to cut and pasted. I really like the first version you had of this. Keep at it your getting there. Maybe a different position with the hands creating more of a flying/floating look.

[writer45]

Great idea...you really have some photoshop skills.

John

[draymorton]

I'm with Greg here. It's a great idea, but the finished product is an almost. The deeper you get into compositing the more the onus is on you to sell the overall effect. The effects in this image still need to be sold, but I'm not sure how. Something needs to be done to make the upper half look like it belongs in the same frame as the lower half, but I don't know what. I think it could possibly have to do with the fact that the processing done on the girl (which is awesome) seems different than what was done on the cityscape (which is also awesome). Something needs to be done to a) bring everything together and b) sell the scene as a whole, but damned if I know what it is at this juncture. Will have to get back you. :P

EDIT: For one thing, she looks very obviously cut-and-pasted.

[jetrim]

OK! You guys have given something to go on! Part of the problem, is that this seemed "off" to me, but I couldn't identify WHY, that's why the intro text was a bit generic (I wasn't sure what I needed to ask for help on). The saturation and clipping can be corrected easily (she was shot on gray seamless so it shouldn't be a big deal to increase the feathering effect) and the saturation was something I was simply looking at but not seeing, if that makes any sense.

I think Dray has hit the nail on the head regarding "selling it" - it's what's bothering me, how to bring it all together... I'm wondering about the processing comment though as processing was applied as a whole, at the end. Each photo was individually adjusted for color temp, but perhaps there's the problem that they didn't all start out as a uniform color temp (The city was shot with a Cannon A510 P&S several years ago on whatever settings it chose at the time, for a cold rainy miserable spring day with massive cloud cover.) Perhaps the variety of DoF between the Dslr and the P&S is enough to make it "feel wrong" - not sure yet but good stuff guys, you've been a big help so far!

[icicle]

Jetrim,
What would happen if you took the city scene and made it smaller then adding more to it.
Like she is higher up.
then maybe on the right side, there's the clouds cut out some of them and show a little horizon to it maybe show some mountains or something.
under the right wing there seems to be a white jagged line, take out the them clouds
Since the city below looks well lit up, maybe try to brighten up the blue sky, as we know sun light is brighter above the clouds.

Just another thought.