How can I improve the edges?

[emanhaud]

After completing the Trucks assignment, I decided to modify some of my photos. Since I waited until the last day, I ended up shooting at a time of day that was not very optimal and ended up shooting into the sun. Since it was kind of hazy, the sky came out pure white. I wanted to see if I could fix this so the following morning I shot a couple of pictures of the sun shining from some clouds. I lined up the sun in the cloud picture with the location of the sun in the truck picture, and then used a layer mask to substitute the background. There was a building in the background that was hard to get to look good, so I masked it out as well. The edges of the building looked too hard against the clouds. The weeds in the background actually blended a little bit better, but the edge is still pretty harsh. I flattened the layers and smudged the edges hoping that it would blend a little better. This did make some improvement, but I was hoping someone could give me some advice on how to make the background blend better.

Before:


After:


Truck EXIF:
Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi
Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: On, Fired

Cloud EXIF:
Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/20.0
Focal Length: 29 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: -1 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

I did lighten the clouds considerably to blend better.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[emanhaud]

I think I am getting closer on this. I selected layer mask and then expanded the selection by 5px. I went around the outside photo edges and brought them in a couple of pixels. I then flattened the layers and applied a Gaussian blur on its default settings. It softened the edges quite a bit. Let me know if you have any other suggestions.

[windrider86]

I actually prefer the one with the light sky. The lighting blends in better

[emanhaud]

Yeah, I get the feeling that no matter how much I play, it won't ever look right, but I did learn a lot in the process. Time to move on...

[zebthepilot]

the first image is better. though, a touch of sharpening via a high pass overlay would bring out the textures a bit more. unsharp mask might work too, but a high pass overlay would probably make the texture pop more then usm. also, I might crop off the bottom 10%ish of the photo to better focus the viewer's eyes.

[emanhaud]

Thanks for the input Zeb. Here is a version with the High-Pass Overlay and cropped. I really like the texture that the overlay created. Thanks for the tip! It was good to research and learn a little about this tool. I am sure I will be using it again.

[zebthepilot]

no problem. I like the revision. that really brought out some of the texture and detail. the crop helps too.