Why Your Composites Look Fake (And the Lighting Logic That Actually Fixes It)

The Lie Your Composite Is Telling Before I open Photoshop on any project, I sketch the entire thing by hand. Pencil, paper, usually on the back of whatever envelope is sitting on my desk. I’ve done this for every composite I’ve made, from Brooklyn apartment mood boards to movie poster campaigns. The sketch isn’t about planning composition. It’s about planning light. Light is the first lie in a bad composite. Not the masking, not the color grading, not the resolution mismatch.