Why Your Composites Look Fake (And It's Not the Masking)

I once spent three days getting a mask perfect. Every strand of hair, every soft edge along a jacket collar, every pixel that touched the background. I was proud of it. Then I stepped back, looked at the full composite, and felt that familiar drop in the stomach. The subject looked pasted on. Not because the mask was wrong. The mask was immaculate. The problem was that she was lit by a warm afternoon sun, and I’d dropped her into a scene with cool, overcast daylight.