Robinson!! Excellent job! Might I ask what technique you used to match the tonalities of the two photos? I see there is a good deal more contrast in the original photo of the man than in the one with the woman. Also, marvelous job lining the shadow of the man with the curvature of the guardrail. What was your method for doing this? A puppet warp/liquify on a cutout of the legs?
You clearly have a fair amount of experience working in photoshop as your selection of the man looks beautiful!
A few notes I would have (Hope I am not crossing any boundaries, just wanting to give a friendly critique as I see it.)
1. As there are slower tonal transitions in the shadows across both of the characters, I would have softened the edge of the shadow behind the man a bit more along with burning the shadows down just a tad.
2. There would likely be a bit more shadowing on the man's right leg (leg on the left as we see it) as there is a bit of a highlight on it as it stands.
3. The Luminance of the shoes in the image sort of clashes with the environment around it, and as such I would burn in some of the lighter areas on the shoes.
4. I would also recommend using a similar step to what you used to cast a shadow on the snow and ground behind the man's left leg (on your right) to add more dimension to the image.
5. On a very personal note, I would clean up the old scratches instead of adding them in, but seeing as how you are going for an old picture feeling, I chalk that one up to a conscious decision to leave them in(and add them on the man).
In my quick edit to demonstrate the techniques I am talking about, I had to exaggerate the shadow feathering on the guardrail a bit, and burned a bit darker than I would recommend for the image to make them a bit more noticeable. I also didn't match the black point exactly as the edit was purely for demonstration purposes.
As art of course I realize these are all my subjective opinions, but I feel they may help you to advance your skills in blending images.
Overall Great work!
I also live in Colorado, and I must add I am a huge fan of your photography Robin. I greatly look up to the work you do! I hope I proved helpful and not like I am just picking nits!
