One minor thing... see how the original shadows come from the upper right? (look at the ball's shadow on his elbow and his knee's shadow on his shorts)
Now look at your drop shadow behind his ear. And look at the drop shadow under the text. Dropshadow (virtual) light source is from upper left.
Mark: First one looks great but for what Clarence pointed out with his very keen eye. Second one doesn't work for me. I see no good reason to devote 2/3 of the poster to a low-opacity background image while relegating the cutout to the bottom corner. Find a way to swap the relative attention/focus to/on the two images and you've got another winner.
I just use the quick selection tool and refine mask. Maybe I shouldn't have used the refine mask. I have found that work the best for me when doing hair.
what i find best is doing the magnetic lasso for a rough outline. then create the layer mask and manually paint/mask the areas i dont want. takes a little longer but the results look clean
I watched the Joel Grimes video on Kelby training. His tip for the hair was when you are doing the selection get the skin then use the refine tool to paint in the hair, not letting the brush touch the skin. Tis has worked well for me with the body hair and wispy head hairs.
Nice work Mark! This design and template by Chris has probably been my best selling poster over the past 2 seasons. If y'all aren't selling posters, you're not marketing them at all or you're not marketing them correctly....plain and simple. They are a huge part of my business and I am very grateful I have found great designers like Chris who are willing to listen to my ideas and help with some great designs, as well as come up with many killer designs on his own.
Mark, it looks like you're doing great work. Keep it up!
Billy-
