The One Photoshop Trick That Fixes the Biggest Mistake in Color Compositing

Every composite I’ve ever built starts with the same quiet dread: getting the subject onto the new background and realizing immediately that the colors are living in completely different worlds. The subject looks pasted. Not because the masking is bad, not because the lighting direction is wrong, but because the color temperature is fighting itself. Warm, golden background. Cool, flat subject. The eye catches it before the brain does, and once it’s seen, it can’t be unseen.