Getting a realistic composite image in Photoshop can seem super complicated.

What most people don’t know is that there are a handful of really useful, repeatable tricks I rely on every time that are dead-simple for bringing the image together. And I get to kick back and be creative!

The one thing I hear all the time from students, and even colleagues who are pretty dang good with Photoshop, is "I just can't ever get my composites to look realistic."

They go through every color adjustment layer hoping one will work, trying to adjust the color and lighting of the different...