Oops, The Guy Is Floating.

Every once in a while you have a good effort that falls a wee bit short. Today's image is a pretty good example of almost, but not quite. Things look pretty good until you check out the man in the doorway. His hands are a little funky and he's walking into the corner of the barn, but the big deal is that he's floating. He appears to be in full flight, just above his shadow. The image is made up of five different shots, so maybe some slack could be granted on the finer details, but wrong is wrong. It looks like something that could wind up on the "Photoshop Disasters" site. It is an entertaining site that points out grievous errors made by photographers and Photoshoppers. Some are pretty funny. If someone is going to try to pull a fast one they'd better be fairly meticulous about getting things right. Today's image is from a few years ago, back when I was doing a lot of head scratching about how to do things in PS. When I explained that the image was made up of several pieces, people almost stood in line guessing what the five pieces were. As far as I remember, no one got it right. People guessed that the blue wagon was inserted. Nope, it was there. Some said "something was removed from the farmer's hands". Nope, he must have been moving his hands and I just happened to get them in an awkward position. I remember everyone getting the farmer himself being added, but that was too easy. If you'd already taken your guesses, here's the list. The barn itself is two exposures, one for the general shape and one for the inside detail. The sky was put in to eliminate the bald sky of the day. The farmer was another piece and his "shadow" was a complete build in Photoshop. I look at this image today and have a chuckle about the time it took and the execution problems I had. If you're new to Photoshop (probably using it for three years or less on a reasonably consistent basis) take heart, things become easier the more you learn. I show composites (hopefully better than this one) to people who make a living with Photoshop and they haven't the foggiest idea how things are done. One thing to remember is that you don't have to be good to make a living using PS. You just have to be gutsy.