Hoover Dam composite - does it look fake

[nathanbarlow]

Hi all,

I took this in RAW mode, but the people were very under exposed and the wall of the Hoover Dam was almost blown out. So in Photoshop, I converted to 4 different tif's - one exposed for the people, another exposed for the people (just lower) and two for the background (one for dam wall and one for the rest of the background). Then used layer masking on each layer to remove each part which wasn't wanted etc.

My question is, does this look like I have photoshopped the people into the background to make a fake picture? If so, what is it that I have done 'wrong'?



Thanks in advance for any feedback, and could I please request that people dont post modified versions of this particular image, would prefer you to let me know what you would change/do etc. Apologies for any hassles for this (its not my normal MO)

Nathan

[kirbinster]

Looks perfect to me, I would have assumed it was a SOOC shot if you had not told otherwise. Great job.

[Niresangwa]

agreed.

until you sit and look at it for a long time, nothing looks too out of the ordinary.

If it were me, I might play with the saturation a little, reduce the noise...looks a little flat, which is another reason it looks like it's SOOC.

[junglebear]

Hmmm it looks a little off to me, I think maybe the people in the foreground are oversaturated, whereas the background looks very faded in contrast.
Although things like that aren't so noticeable before someone asks you if it looks unnatural!

[nathanbarlow]

@junglebear

I know what you mean - I have been working on it for a while, and it looked SOOO fake to me (looked like a bad worth100.com image lol) then on here people are like oh its hard to see, but you do see it eventually after looking a while....

Alright, so either drop the saturation on the people or up the saturation on the background. Will have a play around.

Thanks for all the feedback so far, and I'll try post a version 2

[daddyoproductions]

Agree on the flat and the contrast is different on the people than the background. I often to composites and you usually have to play with the brightness/contrast/saturation on each part/layer separately to get it to look good together. I use CS4 and take snapshots of each time I play, so I can pick the one that looks best.
~C

[parkerreno]

It almost looks like a greenscreen to me...

[Pitrih]

you did a great job on editing but there are couple of problems, like:

guy's left arm is too dark looks like a zombie hand, also there is still some weird darkness on the right arm.

saturation on the people needs to be dropped down, also try converting this shot to B&W.

[vsa]

I'm having same kinda thoughts as junglebear and Pitrih.

The dark hand could be easily fixed with more precise masking. But it might as well be very hard to make look good. Would need to get my hands on the original but yea... At the moment the person on the right has very dark "inner glow".

Saturation/fadedness can be very easily fixed with just curves adjustment affecting only the background. Just a tiny dip in the dark end of the curve will be enough. Maybe some color balance work to bring it all together.

There's also more noise on the people than the background.