Thanks CM. Simple but effective.

That is a very difficult question. This Chop had some difficulties but also had some good things going for it. The main problem was the car external source was underexposed, and had lot of lost detail. Due to loss of detail, I probably could not "lighten" the car parts to match the source pipes, so I decided to darken the "source" pipes to match the car parts. You can see this in the engine block, the heat-fin thingy, and the front end part in steps 7, 8, and 9. Color Match worked good as a start (which took a bit of finagling) and then some lighting/color adjustments to dial it in.

Cutting things out properly is vital too. I generally use a 1px feather when cutting things out but sometimes that is greater or even much much much greater. The enemy is a "hard edged cut out" that looks like a cut out. If the 1px feather doesn't look good you can always re-mask and re-feather it as you already have your "base-line" cut out. Also cleaning the edges from **ANY** fringing, to me, is key. Even something minor like these "yuckies" on this spring should be taken out IMO https://image.ibb.co/dn0nr8/springs.gif. This is rather easy to do. Clip a layer on top of the springs. Sometimes I use Multiply, Hard Light, Overlay, but this time I kept it at a Normal Layer. Then just clone in some matching color from the springs to cover the yuckies and it will lessen that "cut out look".

Also when blending something in, remember that you do not always have to use a 100% brush while masking. A lot of the time it's best to use a lower opacity soft brush (22%-44% in my opinion but u can go higher or lower if needed) and just keep brushing from the outside to the inside which will create sort of a feathered mask. It takes time, but your blend can come out WAY better. Don't forget you can change the hardness of your brush so sometimes a harder brush will do better, but this is not usual.

Get used to your Pen Tool when cutting something out and make sure you can set your mouse/tablet to a lower DPI to make it move slower when using a Lasso or even while painting/masking. Use Smart Objects when you can, and also use Clipping Mask layer adjustments. You shuold almost NEVER work destructively.

Beyond that the brightness and color should matching, which is a whole 'nother ball game. Sometimes you may even have a bright/dark "spot" on something that needs to be taken care of, so that will have to be masked (generally with soft feather)and adjusted accordingly.

Proper shadowing or lightening of areas is also vital. A lot of the times you should use several layers when making a shadow. Make a darker one on top (this one will generally be smaller in size), and get lighter and lighter towards the bottom layers (these I generally make larger and lager). You want to do it this way because if you put the lighter shadow layers on top of the darker one, it may make the dark shadow layer TOO dark. You can change your brush shape with F5, so a lot of the times it's best to use an "oval" brush when doing this.

I'm probably missing a million things, but these are the ones that popped into my head while sitting here. Watch YouTube videos. Besides looking at other's work, it's one of the best ways to learn. Hope this helps.

Thanks SA. It all fit together nicely. I had two final versions and basically after a coin toss, I decided on this one. The other one didn't have that "old fashioned" look but it was definitely awesome too. Sometimes nothing is good enough, but this time I had two to choose from. Not a usual situation.

You could have put both in the contest if they look different enough. You are allowed more than one in a contest.

Mahalo seestah. My score surprised me. Didn't expect that high.

It all came together pretty easily actually. Once I found that source car, it was destiny.

TY BTW.