Alright, thanks for the CC.

Nice try but need a lot of work, Your attempting to make something work that never will...

That background is some what to fake for the real render your using. And try to add shadowing and color reducers next time =)

am i the only one who noticed here arm? it has a white bg still under both armpits and the right nee and guitar dont look right. also the rock in the bottom left is bad and so is the shadow but with a bit of work it could be good

Aha...

My favourite type of manip. I will post some feedback on this for you in a bit.

Ok so its your first.

As expected it has all the beginner things

2 images

One badly cut
Colours and shades not matched

I know the original image you used and it is a lot brighter so im confused as to why you made it darker and added a woman with alot of light.

Should have kept the background its original brightness and colour, then added the woman.

Then with the woman you can mess with curves and levels to bring her to the same level as your background.

From there you can then go further on the shades highlights.

Shading and highlight can be pretty easy, but as youre starting out a new layer set to overlay then soft brush with black on the areas you want to darken, play with opacity to get it just right.
Use white for making an area brighter.

Once thats all done, play with gradient maps to get an overall tone change.

These are beginner steps but they should help you out.

Inkz will follow with some really good tips soon ;)

i agree with -Z-

it doesnt look right, it looks like you just copied and paste her there bro

Thanks Arf...

Some awesome feedback there.

When making your manip using just a model and bg. First off, it's so important to cut out the model perfectly. I know people struggle with hair, but there are ways around that. I use a hair brush, simple. Now, when you add the cut out model to the bg, change the saturation slighlt to match in with the bg, then maybe some colour balance. The lighting on the background also needs to match in with the model, otherwise he/she will look out of place.

I few simple tricks to hopefully improve your next project.

Thank you for all the CC, I will be getting in contact with a few of you for some tips.