donolea Loc: Nashville, TN

Our friend and fellow "hogger", Jim-Pops posted this original photo titled "Chance shot with Harley" on Tuesday. I told him I loved it and had an idea have some fun with it. The Greenwood's surprise musical guest is country music legend Johhny Lee from Alta Loma, Texas. My original shot of Johhny was from inside a local club here in Nashville as we were getting ready for our lunch break during shooting.

What do ya think?

(Download)

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

That's some good Photoshop work. Cool!!

donolea Loc: Nashville, TN

Thanks Jim, glad you like it — I know Johnny would approve.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Wonderful! I'm glad you brought back that cool lamp on the side of the building. I also love the colored lights on the porch that are now brightly lit. Your creativity never ceases to leave me speechless Thanks so much for the inspiring art you share here, Don.

donolea Loc: Nashville, TN

Thanks for checking it out, Linda. I really appreciate your wonderful comments! I actually went to Google Maps to find the location to make sure that it was, in fact, a lamp. I felt it was needed as well.

rlaugh Loc: Michigan & Florida

Excellent work right down to the reflection on the face!!

deer2ker Loc: Nashville, TN

This is so great Don and so fun! Amazing job

Dave Chinn

Excellent work Don !!! Everything fits so well. From the bike, Johnny Lee to the Greenwood's. A place I would love to visit someday. I know how difficult it was to place Johhny on the bike, at least for me it would have been a task. Switching arms, legs, feet for proper placement looks perfect, or maybe just mirrored him. I love how you turned the so called Christmas lights on. The sign and additional light on the building is an added plus. Another concept you, Jim-Pops and Johhny should be proud of.
Dave

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

The more you study this edit that Dave did the more your realize how many elements he put into it. I keep seeing more touches he did to make this so good.

SoHillGuy Loc: Washington

Little things like the light reflection onto his face from the bike's mirror adds realism to the composition. Gaylord likes it.

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

Beautiful. I was looking at both shots before I went to the composite to see if I could guess what you were going to come up with. You surprised me again, as per usual. Looks fantastic.
erich

lexy

I was at first impressed by this picture. Impressed how easily two entirely separate images could be merged into something reasonably believable and many points should be awarded for your imagination.
That believability however soon began to unravel when I looked a little closer.
I have delayed this response in order to enable everyone else who chose to provide their critique to do so and I am surprised that no one has picked up on the following discrepancies in the detail that lessen the overall success of this photo merge.
I would like to offer the following with only the best intention to provide meaningful critique with a view that it may cause you to be more self critical in your future work.
Although you have done a fairly decent job of extracting the man from his background closer inspection reveals that the throttle cables on the motorcycle appear to pass through his arm which in itself is probably a minor lapse of attention to detail forgiven for having been overlooked.
A little more distracting though is that the overall processing quality of the man does not match that of the motorcycle or it's background. Also overlooked is that although the bike is throwing strong shadows on the ground there is no evidence of appropriate shows on the man’s body.
A note to those who commented, the angle of the shadows indicates that the sun is approximately 45 degrees from upper right and proper examination of the angle of the mirror to that light source would rule out any notion of there being reflection on his face.
Much more important however is an issue that requires me to digress a little for a moment.
There is much and constant discussion of the advantages of shooting raw because it allows better control of the final image than straight out of the camera jpegs.
Few people would dispute this but it relies entirely on the ability of the person using the software to actually see what is there in the resulting image that presents before them.
When people present their finished images in sections such as this and others I have to ask what advantage is there to ask for critique when those providing it are seemingly as insensitive to detail and correct colour as is evidenced by the responses here.
That said then it is otherwise a very nice picture of a bright orange man on a bike.

donolea Loc: Nashville, TN

Well, I certainly appreciate your "meaningful critique" ... I must say, I totally missed the fuel lines, even though I had been looking at them for a couple of days. Sometimes the extra set of eyes is helpful. I also worked on the extra shadowing as well as trying to better match the color for the entire scene. There were a number of other things that I didn't like as well: the sandwich board and it's shadow, for instance. It was just too bright and the shadow's color didn't match the scene. I also painted in extra leaves on both sides of the building, as well as the sky to create a better transition.

(Download)

donolea Loc: Nashville, TN

Thanks, glad you like it!

donolea Loc: Nashville, TN

Thanks ... it is fun doing this kind of work! Check out my further corrections/improvements below.