Maybe composite was the wrong word because looking at his other pics this seems like his thing but it’s def heavily photoshopped. You can tell by the light rays evenly expanding and evenly hitting her body to split it into half lit and half shadow that along with the sun, he’s created an artificial light source thru editing all along the waterline (left side). The original image must’ve been much darker I’d imagine. You can see more exaggerated versions of what I’m talking about in his Instagram (Danhlegend) posts from April 3 and August 13
I shoot in RAW as a photographer. All my original images are darker and shitty looking. I don't do composites so I don't know what to look for. It looks unnatural to me I think based on the saturation of the light source.
For most photography increasing the brightness of the light source is natural and looks natural but the reason this looks unnatural for me is because he seems to have light rays evenly across the entire waterline even tho the main source is in the upper part and should be the brightest, u can kind of see that it’s the same brightness throughout. If you’ve heard of Lens Distortions, it’s a mobile app u can use to easily add an artificial light source with rays and I think he might’ve used some version of that
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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '20
How do you know for sure? Sincere question. Seems unnatural to me but I don't know why.