Man with Sax

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Combined two photos. Comments welcomed.

[IMG]saxFinal by pongo now, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Geoff F]

Looks good to me.

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Looks good to me.

The bright section above his head bothered me. Tried making it a shadow area but was unable to get it how I would like. Thank you for viewing and commenting.

[Manfred M]

The "secret" of making a strong composite is to make it look as if it were not composited.

The first (and often hardest) part is to get a clean cutout. You've done reasonably well there, but some artifacts along the clothing on the right side of the frame need to be cleaned up. There are a few other minor dodgy areas as well, if you look closely;

Secondly the colour temperatures of the composited image need to match the background. You have achieved this, Both the background and the subject are slightly warm toned.

The hardest part is matching the direction and quality of light. The light on the background looks like the light is coming from directly overhead and the light on the right hand side of the brickwork looks brighter than the left hand side.. The light on the subject looks like it is coming from camera left. That gives us a mis-match and a clue that this is a composite image. There are some clues on the face, neck and hands that tell us something is not quite right here.

Regardless, a well executed composite.

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Thank you Manfred. .

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Full background photo. I took it because I liked how the shadow terminated at the edge of the sidewalk. Thought it would make a good background.

[IMG]hadowEscape by pongo now, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Manfred M]

Full background photo. I took it because I liked how the shadow terminated at the edge of the sidewalk. Thought it would make a good background.

It does make a good background and it looks like my analysis of the position of the sun was correct.

When I do a composite, I tend to select the background first and then shoot the subject in a way that matches the background. That is always easier in a studio than trying an image that you have shot elsewhere.

One can also work the other way around. You have the saxophone player. Now look for a scene where the light more or less matches the light in that image and composite the two together.

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I took your suggestion and put him on a different background. Will come back to it later. Thank you again.

[IMG]CafeSax1 by pongo now, on Flickr[/IMG]

[mugge]

Much better than the first image. There is more of a story to it.
Cheers Ole

[Manfred M]

Your latest composite seems to focus on the background and less so on the subject. Cropping just below the "Cafe Wha?" sign would restore the balance.

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Your latest composite seems to focus on the background and less so on the subject. Cropping just below the "Cafe Wha?" sign would restore the balance.

They do compete Much better with out the sign. Great learning experience.